


Only Mostly Dead

by blameitonvortices



Series: In which Loki takes over for Odin [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Gen, Hurt Loki, Loki Has Issues, Odin tries to be a good dad, Odin's Parenting, Post-Thor: The Dark World
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-22
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2018-12-17 00:49:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 32,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11840520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blameitonvortices/pseuds/blameitonvortices
Summary: After Loki gets stabbed on the Dark World, Thor leaves him for dead and the Einherjar retrieve his body. But Odin thinks Loki's not as dead as he seems, and sees a way to, possibly, solve several problems at once. Including, just maybe, salvaging his relationship with his youngest.





	1. Always dying, never dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which exposition happens. Loki is stabbed, dies but doesn't, and Odin seizes a chance to make things right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So once I had "May Death find you alive" written, I suddenly found myself with a head-cannon I really liked and a connect-the-dots story writing itself in my head. 
> 
> I may as well say now, this story has a fairly sympathetic portrayal of Odin. I enjoy a good "Odin is a terrible father" story as much as the next person, but if I'm going to give Loki the benefit of the doubt I figured I may as well do likewise for Odin. Also, parenting is *hard*; I have perhaps more empathy these days than I used to for Odin. 
> 
> At least one chapter is them trying to have an honest goddamn conversation. 
> 
> If you are allergic to Odin-had-good-intentions portrayals, this probably isn't the story for you. 
> 
> The first chapter is mixed POV, subsequent chapters will be written as 2a, 2b, etc, with Chapter Xa being Odin's POV, and Chapter Xb being Loki's. An experiment in empathy, if you will.

"See you in Hel, monster." Loki watched with grim satisfaction as Kurse was collapsed into the black hole and vanished. It made being stabbed less annoying. No, not annoying, because he was suddenly *cold* on top of the pain, and it occured to him, too late, the blade might be poisoned.

"No no no no, ah, you fool you didn't listen."

Thor, simple, emotional, *warm* Thor was cradling him so at least the rocks were no longer pressing against his wound. His hand, callused and dusty and strong was holding Loki's head up, something Loki no longer seemed able to do as the poison coursed through his veins and froze what blood remained. 

"I know, I'm a fool, I'm a fool." He gasped as even those few words seem to tear something inside. 

"Stay with me," Thor ordered him, begged him. Hopeful Thor. As if it were as simple as a choice not to go to bed just yet. One more round...

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," and he was. Fighting next to Thor had felt exultant. For a moment things had seemed right, his tricks and speed and Thor's brazenness and strength. Not that that could ever last. Like fireworks really: glorious and then gone. 

"Shh, it's okay." Thor looked like he had caught on at last, that this was the end, choking down tears. "It's alright. I'll tell Father what you did here today."

The pain suddenly faded to the background, and Loki thought _this is what dying is. the end of pain_. "I didn't do it for him," he told his brother with the last ounce of consciousness he had, a last denial of Odin, and the greyness around his vision turned to black, and Loki knew no more. 

***

And then, Loki did know more. He felt pain, burning, throbbing, stabbing pain in his chest and the deep ache of lungs demanding air. He gasped as his lungs took their due, and then choked as it brought a fresh wave of pain radiating from where the blade had gone through him.  
_I thought the one upside to dying was once it was done, so was pain._ he thought irritably. 

"Shh, Loki. Lie still." 

"Mother?" Loki tried to open his eyes, barely managing to open one eye enough to see a vague shape next to him before his eyelid became too heavy and closed of its own accord.

"Lie still," the voice repeated and a cool hand laid itself over his eyes before carding through his hair oh so gently. "It will be alright soon."

He seriously doubted that. But there could be worse things that hallucinating Frigga stroking his head while he finished dying. He tried to focus on that and not the pain as his world faded away. 

***  
The Einherjar found Loki's body hidden in a small cave out of the wind, not far from the Bifrost site. They had already seen the dead dark elves, the signs of battle, and followed the trail of blood. There was no sign of Thor or the woman. 

The guards gave each other inquiring glances out of the side of their eyes, and returned shrugs. His head wasn't smashed, and he had obviously been laid out. The footprints leading to the cave were Thor's, not Loki's. What exactly that meant was above their paygrade. They were just told to bring back any Aesir, or human, bodies. 

Two of the younger ones setup the bier and moved Loki's body onto it. The one by his head whispered, "Do you think he's really dead?"

The other pointed at the pool of black blood congealed on the dust where the former prince had lay. "Look at that. Think of how much blood we followed here. There's not enough blood left in him to thicken a stew."

Even so, it seemed to the young guard that despite his pallor and the pool of blood, the body was not quite as corpse-like as he had expected. Not stiff enough perhaps? But maybe a body that had been drained like a slaughtered pig didn't stiffen quite the same way. Or maybe it hadn't enough time. Either way, he wasn't paid to think about the quality of the corpse.

***

Odin stood on the dias, looking around at the destruction. He was tired. There was never a good time to go into the Odin-sleep, but this was a very bad time for it. He should have taken Frigga's advice decades ago. Then maybe all the sorrows of the past few years might have been averted. 

Maybe Frigga would be standing next to him. 

He missed her terribly. More than he could ever express. It was like half of him had been torn away. He would gladly sacrifice half of his body if it would have brought her back. Cut off his right hand for a few more hours. Being the All-Father, he had felt her death from afar. Being her husband, the hollow pit inside yawned like the Void itself. 

"Forgive me, my liege. I return with news from the Dark World. There is no sign of Thor, or the weapon. But we did find a body."

Odin turned. He still faintly perceived Thor rocketing through the worlds. "Loki."

The guard smiled. Did he think Odin would be pleased with Loki's death? No...that hollowness seemed less hollow than it had an hour ago when he had sent the Einherjar. Could it be...?

"Bring him to my chamber. I will lay out his body myself." Women's work be damned. He had laid out Frigga, laying claim to an older duty and right. He would claim the same for Loki if anyone dared ask. 

"Sire, surely it would be more appropriate--"

"Did I ask your advice? Go, tell them to take his body to my chamber. Tell me what else you found."

"Yes, my liege." Odin listened while the man gave detail to that which Odin already knew, in that strange, vague way the All-Father did. Dead elves, signs of battle, the ship gone, Thor and the human woman gone, Loki's body carefully hidden in a rock cave. He curtly dismissed the captain, and then swept out of the ruined hall. 

One of the benefits of being the All-Father was a sixth sense when it came to certain things. And right now it was telling him that his second son was not quite as dead as he seemed. But if the rest of the realms thought Loki dead, it might be for the best. At least temporarily. 

When he got to his chambers, the stretcher bearing Loki was already there, resting on a long table along with two large basins of water, a change of clothes from Loki's rooms and a shroud. A guard's cloak had been laid over the body. 

Odin lay aside Guignir, and removed enough armor that he could roll up his sleeves. He pulled the cloak off Loki and set it aside. His eye was drawn to the ragged hole in Loki's armor, the black stains around the edges. There was a grey cast to Loki's skin, and a darkness to the veins underneath, that spoke of poison on the blade. Odin sought out a small chest in Frigga's solar and brought out a few jars, labeled in Frigga's hand. He smiled at the memories they conjured, of the first time he had returned to her wounded but refusing to go the healers. She had chided, and then done it herself. Of the many times after, as the chiding slid from serious conjugal rebuke to quiet marital jest. 

Shaking himself free of the bittersweet memories, Odin set to work first washing the dust of the Dark World off Loki's face, then setting about removing his boots. He noted the blood on Loki's foot, and shook out the boot looking for the stone that wasn't there. Some of Loki's armour was easy enough to remove, being as it was lighter than customary in Asgard but Loki relied on a quickness that would only have been hampered by heavy plating. But larger pieces, like his coat, were more difficult to remove intact without manhandling or magic. And Odin suspected he would need every last dram of strength he could muster, so he resorted to Frigga's shears. Loki could yell at him for ruining his clothes later. 

The thought of Loki yelling reminded Odin to activate the silencing wards that were laid all around the king's rooms. Both Thor and Loki might be lacking in the complete set of kingly qualities, but they had both mastered majestic bellowing. And Odin thought he ought to give Loki the chance to vent his spleen. 

 

At last Loki lay on stretcher in trousers and loose shirt, the latter plastered to the too thin chest with dark blood. Odin tried not to dwell on how fragile his son looked. How dead. 

The water in the basins was warm, and Odin worked slowly and carefully, letting the water loosen the clotted gore until the shirt peeled easily away from the wound. It didn't take much to finish rending the ruined shirt to expose Loki's chest entirely. Now he could see for certain that yes, Loki was breathing. Very, very shallowly, but definitely alive. Gently, Odin cleaned around the wound, and sluiced some water into the wound. He heard it dripping, sickeningly, out the other side.

He rolled Loki, gently, towards him so he could finish removing the filthy rags that were formerly his son's shirt. He clicked his tongue in sympathy as he saw how the blade had angled up, slicing through, what four ribs? Five? At least it had missed Loki's spine.

But it couldn't have missed his heart. Or lung. The wound was large enough it would probably be easier to think of organs it _couldn't_ have hit. So how had he survived? Even more surprising (if welcome) since Odin was certain he had felt Loki die. Not just vanish, as when he fell into the void, but die. A mystery. 

A little more water and it was clean enough. Odin lay a towel on the dusty stretcher before rolling Loki back, wondering if the soft whimper as he did so was just his imagination. Gently, with none but the Norns to see, he kissed his son's hair. As he did so, a ghost of Frigga's perfume wafted up. Odin suddenly grinned at the vision of Frigga defending her son from Valkyries, staring them down and reaching beyond the grave to heal Loki just enough that he could be brought home alive.

The boundaries of life and death were a little softer for Aesir; perhaps combined with the will and love of the All-Mother?

Pointless speculation. 

Odin selected a pearlescent jar, said the spell to complete the healing magic (always more Frigga's strength than his. The chest had seemed extra full--he wondered if Frigga had foreseen her fate), and poured a thin trickle into the gaping wound on Loki's chest. 

Loki arched and made a thin, keening noise. Odin knew from experience that this unguent was potent, and unpleasant. The wounds smoked and it seemed for a moment that Loki's skin was trying to crawl off him as the poison was pulled out of his veins and bubbled out through the wound. Loki made a choking noise and thrashed, sending the basin of filthy water crashing to the floor. 

Odin held onto his son's shoulders, lest he too go crashing to the floor. If he were stronger, less tired, he perhaps could have mananged without the oil, but it was vital that he speak to Loki, and that couldn't happen if he was comatose in the Odin-sleep. 

At last all the poison was drawn out, and the wound began to bleed red sluggishly as Loki's own healing took over. Loki's skin was pale, nearly white, but no longer grey, breathing with lungs unhampered by poison. 

For a moment, Odin considered waking Loki with magic. Time was short, after all. 

But no. Odin, Loki's-father, won out over Odin All-Father and Odin King. When Loki fell, there had been no body to stand vigil over. When he had returned, sore from battle, covered in old scars only Eir had seen, he had been a traitor, and Odin King could not stand at a traitor's bedside. Odin needed to watch this vigil. He owed his son that. 

So he cleared the table of basins and rags and covered Loki with a warm quilt, sewn by Frigga when Odin still had two eyes to watch her with, and drew a chair close. While Loki slept, Odin kept watch, and mourned.


	2. Chapter 2: Odin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Odin meditates on where he went wrong, remembers better days, and reconciliation gets off to a rough start.

Odin sat in his chair, and watched Loki breathe. The left side of his chest didn't seem to be rising quite as much as the right yet, but at least you could see that he was breathing, even under the quilt. 

He was, as Thor had once pointed out, an old man and a fool. Thor may have been wrong about why, but he hadn't been wrong. 

He had been a fool to think Thor ready to be king. It had been, he now saw, a blind and desperate hope to have Thor installed as co-regent before he succumbed to the Odin-sleep. He had also been a fool to think he could ignore Loki's Jotun heritage indefinately. 

The truth of the matter was, it had never seemed a good time to tell him. Tensions between Jotun and Aesir were still high, a millenium later. A thousand years and travel between their realms remained forbidden. All official business had to be conducted on one of the other realms. Raising him as a foster was out of the question. Then, a young child is not the best at keeping sensitive secrets. Frigga had argued, vehemently, when Loki began adolescence that he needed to be told. What if he suddenly started manifesting Jotun powers? But he never did (until he traveled where he should not) and Odin had counted them all lucky. Adolescence was hard enough. 

But the way Loki found out was the worst possible way ("am I just another stolen relic? Locked up here until you have use of me?") and Odin had handled it badly. Had made up a terrible, post-hoc reason for taking Loki because the real reason seemed too complicated in the moment. And then everything went to Hel in a handbasket. 

He should have told Loki. The birds and the bees and the "by the by, you're Jotun".

He had failed. Over and over and over, he had failed both his sons, and by failing them failed so many others. Thor had remained the vain, greedy, cruel boy until a _mortal woman_ taught him better. Loki had faded into the shadows, thought himself unloved, tried to kill himself. Odin was, in his own estimation, a terrible father. If one was to be judged by the fruits of one's actions, his actions had borne some trully bitter fruit. 

His thoughts chased themselves in circles, remonstrating, berating, trying to find the precise moments where he failed.

The hours rolled quietly past, as Loki's breathing grew steadier, his color less pallid. 

At some point a servant knocked softly on the door, and Odin heard a tray being set down just outside. Odin opened the door when he was certain no one was in the passage and brought the tray inside, setting it down on a low table near his watch chair. 

Frigga's standing orders still stood. The king had not requested food or attended the evening banquet, so a tray of warm rolls, fresh farmers cheese and summer sausage had been sent up.

Grief rolled over him like a tidal wave, sudden and unstoppable. Odin sat heavily in the chair and buried his face in his hands. Tears streamed from his one eye, and it felt totally inadequate that he could only cry for Frigga with one eye. Sorrow and regret engulfed him, and he drowned in its riptide. 

Slowly, the sorrow receded, this portion of grieving done. Odin scrubbed at his face before conceding it wasn't enough and went to the washroom. 

Odin realized that no matter what choice Loki made, it would behoove him to eat. He selected summer sausage and sliced off chunks with a knife before eating them, though they tasted like ash in his mouth. The rolls were crusty, and steamed invitingly when he broke one in half before eating, though it too tasted like ash. The rest he saved for when Loki ( _when_ not _if_ ) awoke. 

It occured to him that since they were still here, it was likely Thor had succeeded in stopping Malekith. There had never really been any doubt, but it was a reassuring thought nonetheless. 

Midnight tolled softly. Odin had leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes as his wandering mind presented memories of happier times. Watching Frigga with the boys from a balcony. Listening to sounds of their play drift in on an errant breeze. Of carrying half asleep, protesting toddlers to bed, sharing a silent smile with Frigga over the tops of their heads. Helping Loki to complete his first working, a small nightlight in the form of a glowing moth. Trading off with Frigga to walk the halls with a sleepy, fussy baby Loki, knowing the moment he stopped the hiccupy sobs would start all over again. Watching Loki as a young man entertain a table with an expertly told tale. 

A slight quickening of breath, followed by a low keening sound signaled Loki's awakening. Odin jolted out of his reverie and stood at Loki's side. The young man's eyes were squeezed tight in pain, hands grasping at the stretcher beneath him. Odin reached out to push a curl from his son's face, whispering gently as he did, "Loki."

Loki's eyes shot open and he jerked as though to get up. His face rapidly went from flushed with anger, to pale with pain, to green. Heedless of jarring broken bones, Odin grabbed Loki's shoulders and rolled him to the side just in time for him to start vomiting up black blood. Odin cursed the dark elves for choosing such a terrible poison for their blades. He made shushing noises and held Loki, feeling helpless as he watched his son cycle rapidly between unbearable pain and puking. 

Eventually Loki lay quiet, panting and shaking. Blood trickled down his back, and Odin gently wiped it away with a clean towel before easing Loki onto his back. The young man's eyes were closed tightly in pain, his breathing the slow, labored breaths of conscious choice. 

Odin selected a small, brilliantly green vial from among those he had taken from Frigga's store. He broke the wax seal, and pressed it to Loki's lips, pressed to a thin line, commanding with just the slightest touch of power to the words, "Drink this." The lips parted slightly and he poured the liquid as quickly as he dared, hoping Loki was not recovered enough to fight him. He watched closely for a moment, in case the potion reacted badly with whatever poison might linger, before stepping back to pour a cup of water. 

This was tricker to administer than the small vial; he slid an arm under his son's head and shoulders so he could raise him up enough to drink from the cup without pouring water all over. When he had the cup pressed against Loki's lips, he commanded, "Drink."

This time Loki gulped at the water, nearly choking in his haste. When the cup ran dry, Odin pulled it away as Loki whimpered in protest and lay him back down gently. Odin put the cup next to the tray of food, ready to be refilled if Loki didn't vomit up what he had just been given. Then he turned back, and waited for his son to open his eyes. Hoping there would be recongnition, dreading the hatred he expected to see burning in those green eyes. 

It took longer than he liked for Loki to open his eyes again, but when he did and the eyes locked onto his, he rejoiced to see Loki in them, even as his heart sank to see the naked loathing burning in them. 

"You." Loki's voice was raw, barely audible, but the rage it carried was deafening. 

Maybe Odin was a bigger fool than he knew, to think this plan had a prayer of success. 

"Aye, me. How are you feeling?" The question was honest, if banal. Odin did his best to keep his tone quiet, level, aware that if this went awry he would have likely wasted the last chance he would get for reconciliation.

"How am I...?" confusion clouded the normally sharp eyes. Fear roiled across Loki's face before transmuting again to wrath. "I was _dead_. Wasn't that good enough for you?"

The words cut like a knife, and without thinking he replied, "No, Loki," before remembering what weight those words carried. "I never wanted you dead. Surely you realize that?"

Loki looked away, silently clenching and unclenching his fists. Odin wasn't sure how to interpret this. Was the younger man incoherent with hatred? Still too weary from his brush with death to form words (which was wrong, that the Silvertongue should be silenced)? In too much pain, despite the potion? Odin waited, unwilling to guess and misstep. At last Loki looked at him again, wariness and anger competing for place. "Why am I here? Could you not let me die in battle, with honour? Or could you not let me escape my punishment like that?"

So that was it. Odin King was all Loki saw anymore. His son, the little boy of his memories, knew him no longer as father but only as lord. Odin sighed, feeling the crashing weight of loss and failure. "I do not know why you are alive, Loki. It was not my doing. You were alive when the Einherjar brought you back from the Dark World, though they didn't know it. All I did was draw out the poison, so you could heal the wound."

"Heal and return to the cells, I suppose." Loki looked away, and stared at the ceiling. "You should have let them burn me on the trash piles and been done with me."

"Is that what you really think I would do for my son? Let his body be burned with the refuse?" How could he make Loki understand he was still loved? Always had been loved?

"Why not? _I am not your son._ I'm just another trinket, and a broken one at that. Ruined all your plans for peace with Jotunhe-"

He could bear the words no longer, could hold himself in check no longer. Heedless of damage, Odin pulled Loki into a hug that would have had Thor struggling to breathe. Loki's tirade was cut off in an "Hngh" as Odin held him close as he had not done in centuries, and then remembered the still-bleeding wounds and relaxed his embrace until he could feel Loki breathing, but still did not let go. Held his son the way he should have done in the vaults, on the Bifrost. "You were never a trinket, never broken; always, always my son." 

He continued to hold Loki while he gathered himself together again; when he was sure he could speak steadily again, he moved his hands to hold Loki by the shoulders and stepped back. "We should talk."

"I've already told you, I'm not really fond of our little chats." Loki was wary, the words meant to be biting, but the bite seemed to have gone out of them, for now. Odin pressed onward.

"So you've said. But I think... I owe you some explanations. And I have a proposal."

Loki stared at him, mouth slightly agape, seemingly thunderstruck. After a moment he seemed to recall that he was supposed to be angry. "Fine."

"Would you like to sit in a chair? I always found it a bit easier to breathe sitting up after being impaled." Odin indicated a chair heavily burdened with pillows about two paces from Loki was with a nod of his head. 

"Been impaled a lot, have you?" inquired Loki with mock courtesy as he leaned forward as if to get off the table. Odin controlled his fall and waited for him to steady, before taking Loki's right arm over his shoulder and helping, nearly carrying, him to the chair. 

"More times than I remember. Made your mother terribly cross."

In truth it would have been easier to simply pick up his son, as he had so many times before, but pride is a potent thing, as Odin well knew. 

Loki crumpled into the chair, panting and shivering violently. Grabbing a thick fur off the bed, Odin draped it over Loki's legs, tucking it into the chair as best he could to keep it from sliding off before wrapping Frigga's quilt around the young man's shoulders. Loki clutched at the edges of the blanket, seemingly unconscious the action, staring into the middle distance as his teeth chattered. 

This gave Odin an idea. He rummaged in a sideboard until he found a flagon of mead, made with honey from Frigga's bees and herbs from her garden. He poured it out into two mugs, humble vessels that held heat well, and with a little working made both mugs steam invitingly. For a moment he debated giving Loki the choice, but he worried that Loki might not have the strength to hold the cup. Better to have two hands free, and risk the mistrust. So he put his on the table by his chair, and held out the other to Loki, saying simply, "Frigga's mead."

Perhaps he needn't have worried, because Loki reached for it without hesitation, though it took him sometime to get a firm grip on the mug. When Odin was sure it wouldn't be dropped (thrown, maybe, but not dropped), he retreated to his chair, leaving the two ells of space between them a neutal zone. 

"I don't know what your mother put in those potions, but I do recall them tasting terrible. I think she does--did--it on purpose to try and dissuade me from getting impaled quite so often." Odin wasn't sure why he was saying this. Perhaps it was just something to say. Perhaps he wanted to remember Frigga with someone who knew her as more than queen. Perhaps it was meant as a peace offering. 

"Was getting impaled some sort of sport?" Loki's voice, usually honey sweet even if the words were barbed, was rough and the words oddly toothless. He took an awkward swallow of the mead, then seemed to notice the still open wound on his chest. "Why isn't this healed yet?"

"It was a poisoned blade. Even with Frigga's potion to draw out the poison, it will heal more slowly than a clean wound." Odin drained his mug, for courage, and set it carefully aside. It was now or never. "Will you hear my proposal?"

"What would Odin All-Father have of the Jotun traitor?" Loki sneered, with just a hint of the old bite. But more than anything he sounded pained, and wary. 

This was the moment. Raw, naked truth. An all or nothing gamble. 

"I would have him take the throne, bear the burden of the crown while I sleep." 

Loki blinked, like one stunned, and then gave a snort which ended in a pained grunt. "Don't make me laugh, old man. Such jests do not become you." When Odin was silent, and his gaze steady, Loki seemed to realize it was not a jest. "You are serious? You would have me rule while you are in the Odin-sleep? Has you memory failed you? Do you not remember what happened last time?"

"Last time you were young. Unprepared, and questioning everything you knew about yourself, about us. You were right that Thor was unworthy of the throne, but so were you. You are no longer that young man. You have suffered, and grown. I do not think you will make such errors twice."

Loki laughed mirthlessly. "You have too much faith." He drained his mug. 

"Perhaps," he conceded. "But it does not change my offer." 

"And if I refuse?" 

"If you refuse, you are free to do as you will. Slip off to one of the Nine and let all think you dead. Choose to retake your place as prince of the realm. Let all know you survived and wander as hero. Though, that may hold less appeal in the coming years than it might once have."

Loki's eyes narrowed. "I don't believe you. You condemned me to the cells for the rest of my life. Why the sudden clemency?"

"I sentenced you for trying to destroy one realm and conquer another. Today you helped to save the universe from oblivion. I think that rather cancels the debt." 

Loki seemed to consider, then waved a hand dismissively before realizing he still needed both hands to hold his mug. "Even if I wanted to, Asgard would never follow me. None want to see me on the throne. Heimdal didn't obey me even when Frigga gave me Guignir and I hadn't committed high treason."

Now it was Odin who snorted. "Heimdal has only ever been selectively obedient. You'll recall he sent you to Jotunheim, despite my command of a thousand years forbidding passage there. As to your other point," Odin reached across the gap and refilled Loki's mug. "Who said anything about ruling as yourself? All the worlds think you dead. Why disillusion them without purpose? Wear my face, if you prefer, and let all think Loki of Asgard gone to Valhalla."

Loki was silent, his face a schooled mask that Odin could not read. "I do not require an answer this moment. Consider it in your mind, while we talk of other things. I would," he raised his hand to cut off the objection he could see forming on Loki's lips, "give you those answers that you sought in the vaults. That I should have offered centuries past. Ask of me what you will, Loki, and I will answer truthfully, so far as is in my power."

Skepticism was writ large on Loki's face, before it was replaced with a kind of reckless determination. "Alright, All-father. Let's see how far you'll answer this time. _Why did you take me from Jotunheim?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I did not at all intend for this chapter to be so long. Or to take so long to write. But as I wrote this and Chapter 2b, I was finding that actions that made sense from one POV stopped making sense when I was actually in the other head. Which meant constant adjustment of the two chapters as I was writing. Fascinating, but frustrating. 
> 
> Also, this/these chapters are giving my inner grammarian a migraine. Unclear pronouns are officially the enemy of this work. But making them explicit is sometimes very clunky. I may not have always drawn the lines in the right places, I hope you'll forgive it.
> 
> In Chapter 3a&b: an honest, goddamn conversation.


	3. Chapter 2: Loki

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Loki returns to the land of the living and conscious, and wonders what Odin's game is. 
> 
> Warning: suicidal thoughts (of a kind), gruesome wounds.

Loki drifted in a dark nothingness. 

Knowing nothing, feeling nothing. 

Every now and then, he would drift closer to somewhere less dark, less nothing. A dim grey awareness that was accompanied by pain.

The pain throbbed in time with his heartbeat.

Why did he still have a heartbeat??

And then he would drift away again into sweet, sweet oblivion. 

Sometimes the greyness seemed to pull him in, or else crash into him like a ship in a fog. Knowledge of pain and a body that was his, somewhere. 

And then nothing. 

And then sleep.

And then being.

Loki felt worse than when the Hulk had pounded him into Stark's undoubtedly expensive stone floor. Everything hurt, and felt much too heavy. He wondered why Thor had seen fit to weigh him down with Mjolnir _this_ time--it was making it very hard to breathe. His eyes felt gritty and his mouth tasted of dust and blood. 

So, not dead. That was...disappointing. Dying without ever managing to die was getting tiresome. 

A hand brushed hair back from his face. Rough with callouses, smelling of leather. A voice, gentle in tone but rough with age, said "Loki."

Oh Hel. 

His eyes shot open, caught a brief glimpse of Odin (looking worried? surely not) as he tried to sit up, then immediately closed again as pain smashed into him like an avalanche and his stomach lurched. Hands were rolling him onto his side, grinding ribs together, just in time for him to vomit bile and blood and poison. The spasms continued long after his stomach had anything left to yield, as each heave brought new waves of pain and with the pain renewed nausea. At last his stomach conceded that it was empty and further heaving pointless. Loki's mouth tasted like something had crawled in and died sometime last week, and he felt wrung out. He squeezed his eyes shut and lay on his side, panting shallowly. 

Hands eased him onto his back, ribs jarring painfully, and then vanished. Loki tried to think, tried to figure out why Odin would want him alive, surely everyone's problems were solved if Loki Liesmith were death? but his thoughts were sluggish, too much effort was needed just to keep breathing, willing himself to inhale despite the stabbing, grinding pain and then exhale again. 

"Drink this", and the touch of glass on his cracked lips, and something cool and slimy slid over his tongue. He gagged, but whatever it was soothed as ran down his throat and the urge passed. After a moment, his head was lifted gently and the rim of a cup pressed against his lips and he was again told, "Drink."

This time it was water, and he drank thirstily. He whimpered in protest when the cup was pulled away before he could stop himself and his head laid gently back down. The pain was withdrawing, still present but not so paralyzing. He opened his eyes again, this time staying as still as he could and glared at his not-father. "You."

"Aye, me," agreed Odin quietly. What was this game? What was the old man playing at? "How are you feeling?" 

"How am I...?"He hurt. He wanted to get as far away from Odin and Asgard as he could get and he knew, without trying, that he couldn't even stand on his own two feet. He felt the incoherent rage of helplessness surging up in his breast. "I was _dead_ ," Loki spat. "Wasn't that good enough for you?" 

"No, Loki," Odin said, still gently. Loki's heart leapt to his throat, and Odin seemed to wince. "I never wanted you dead," he clarified. "Surely you realize that?"

Loki clenched and unclenched his fists, willing his wits to work faster, faster and figure out what he was doing here, what did Odin want with him, how could he get away; trying to smother the wrath that was threatening to overtake him as he looked up at the one-eyed old man.

" _Why am I here_?" Loki ground out between clenched teeth. He had died. He had been _done_. He had done _the right thing_ and avenged his mother and should have gone to Valhalla, damn it. "Couldn't you let me die in honourable battle? Or couldn't you let me escape my punishment like that?" It hurt his chest to talk, but for once Odin was letting him get a word in edgewise and he might as well take the opportunity. 

Loki scowled at the All-Father. Odin looked...sad? Weary, as ever, but there were tear tracks shining wetly in the wrinkles of the old man's face. Odin sighed, and looked suddenly aged. "I do not know why you are alive, Loki. It was not my doing. You were alive when the Einherjar brought you back from the Dark World, though they didn't know it. All I did was draw out the poison, so you could heal the wound."

"Heal and return to the cells, I suppose." Loki looked away, and stared at the ceiling far above him. "You should have let them burn me on the trash piles and been done with me."

"Is that what you really think I would do for my son? Let his body be burned with the refuse?"

"Why not? _I am not your son._ I'm just another trinket, and a broken one at that. Ruined all your plans for peace with Jotunhe-"

Loki suddenly found himself in a crushing embrace. It ground his broken ribs together and forced the air out of his lungs. His face was pressed into Odin's shoulder and he smelled horses and leather and ozone and _safety_. Smells were the hardest to forget their once-meaning. He felt Odin's fingers in his hair, on his back. The pressure eased until he could breathe again, but Odin continued to hold him tightly. "You were never a trinket, never broken; always, always my son." 

After what felt like an eternity, Odin stepped back, but held Loki upright by his shoulders. "We should talk."

Loki felt off balance, and not just because he would have toppled over if not for the old man's hands. "I've already told you, I'm not really fond of our little chats," he replied, trying to buy some time to think. 

"So you've said. But I think... I owe you some explanations. And I have a proposal."

Loki stared at him. What was this game? His wits were coming back, but were still too slow for this. 

It wasn't really like he had a choice, he decided. Until he was strong enough to stand, or at least cast a decent illusion, he gained nothing, other than the pleasure of obstinate contrariness, by not playing along. Still, he found himself grinding his teeth as he said, "Fine."

"Would you like to sit in a chair? I always found it a bit easier to breathe sitting up after being impaled." Odin indicated a chair heavily burdened with pillows about two paces from Loki was with a nod of his head. 

"Been impaled a lot, have you?" inquired Loki with mock courtesy as he leaned forward to indicate his assent. 

"More times than I remember. Made your mother terribly cross." Even with Odin taking nearly all his weight, what should have been two easy strides took 6 shuffling, painful steps that ended with him nearly collapsing into the chair, grateful for the over abundance of cushions that protected his raw back and broken bones from the hard carvings on the chair. He was aware suddenly that he was shivering with cold, and naked except for his leggings. A thick fur was draped over his lap, and a quilt wrapped around his shoulders, but he still felt half frozen. 

Somewhere behind him, Loki heard the sound of something begin poured. Odin reappeared in front of him, holding what looked like two steaming mugs. "Frigga's mead," he said. He put one down on a small table next to the chair across from Loki, and then held out the other for Loki to take. It took a moment before Loki was sure of his grasp on the mug, and then Odin retired to his own chair.

"I don't know what your mother put in those potions, but I do recall them tasting terrible. I think she does--did--it on purpose to try and dissuade me from getting impaled quite so often." Sitting in the chair, without his armour on, Odin looked less imposing. Not small, or frail, or any of the other adjectives which came to mind to describe the elderly. Just less awe-full. 

"Was getting impaled some sort of sport?" Loki sipped the mead. It was warm and herbal and strong. He noticed, abruptly, that the wound on his chest was still raw, oozing and open. Muscle and bone visible through gaping skin. "Why isn't this healed yet?"

"It was a poisoned blade. Even with Frigga's potion to draw out the poison, it will heal more slowly than a clean wound," Odin seemingly drained his mug and set it aside. "Will you hear my proposal?"

"What would Odin All-Father have of the Jotun traitor?" Loki sneered, putting as much of an edge on the words as he could. But it was proving difficult to get the effect right, with only one lung working right, huddled under a quilt and gripping a cup for dear life. It seemed to affect the delivery more than he would have thought. 

"I would have him take the throne, bear the burden of the crown while I sleep." 

Loki blinked. A part of him knew he must look like a halfwit. _What was the old man's game? Why couldn't he see it? Where was the trap?_ Recovering after the misstep, he gave a snort, which was another mistake because _damn it, it hurt_. "Don't make me laugh, old man. Such jests do not become you." Odin held his gaze, steady and unwavering and silent. It wasn't a joke? _Am I sure this isn't Hel? Maybe I'm condemned to be confused and powerless 'til Ragnarok_. "You are serious? You would have me rule while you are in the Odin-sleep? Has you memory failed you? Do you not remember what happened last time?"

"Last time you were young. Unprepared, and questioning everything you knew about yourself, about us. You were right that Thor was unworthy of the throne, but so were you. You are no longer that young man. You have suffered, and grown. I do not think you will make such errors twice."

Loki laughed mirthlessly. "You have too much faith." He drained his mug. If he was going to be jerked around in this manner, if nothing was going to be making sense he may as well be drunk. 

"Perhaps," Odin conceded. "But it does not change my offer." 

Huh. "And if I refuse?" 

"If you refuse, you are free to do as you will. Slip off to one of the Nine and let all think you dead. Choose to retake your place as prince of the realm. Let all know you survived and wander as hero. Though, that may hold less appeal in the coming years than it might once have."

This was more than credence would bear. "I don't believe you. You condemned me to the cells for the rest of my life. Why the sudden clemency?"

"I sentenced you for trying to destroy one realm and conquer another. Today you helped to save the universe from oblivion. I think that rather cancels the debt." 

That actually seemed reasonable. Destroy a realm, save the universe, it balanced out, somewhat. But he still couldn't see Odin's endgame, couldn't see the snag. There were a dozen reasons to say no. He tried to brush it away with a gesture, then realized his strength was still insufficient to hold the cup singlehandedly. "Even if I wanted to, Asgard would never follow me. None want to see me on the throne. Heimdal didn't obey me even when Frigga gave me Guignir and I hadn't committed high treason."

Odin snorted. "Heimdal has only ever been selectively obedient. You'll recall he sent you to Jotunheim, despite my command of a thousand years forbidding passage there. As to your other point," Odin reached across the gap and refilled Loki's mug. "Who said anything about ruling as yourself? All the worlds think you dead. Why disillusion them without purpose? Wear my face, if you prefer, and let all think Loki of Asgard gone to Valhalla."

 

This was unexpected. Loki was still certain there was a trick, some hidden cost he could not see. But it had possibilities. A chance to show up Thor? Prove that he didn't need his "pretty face" for his silver tongue to work? Odin at his mercy? Show that he could be a good king, if he chose?

"I do not require an answer this moment. Consider it in your mind, while we talk of other things. I would," Odin raised his hand before Loki could get in his jab, "give you those answers that you sought in the vaults. That I should have offered centuries past. Ask of me what you will, Loki, and I will answer truthfully, so far as is in my power."

That seemed like a condition ripe for the old man to exploit. But if this was the game he wanted to play, Loki would play. The mead was making him reckless, perhaps, but he had already died that day, what more did he have to lose? "Alright, All-father. Let's see how far you'll answer this time. _Why did you take me from Jotunheim?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loki was a bit of a trip to write here. I hope I caught his voice adequately. 
> 
> If you've never been in so much pain you throw up, I hope you never do. If you have, you know how Loki feels. Thank heaven for pain killers. 
> 
> Next up: honest conversation.


	4. Chapter 3: Every one can master a grief but he that has it. (Odin's POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Odin tries to have an honest conversation with Loki, and it goes poorly.
> 
> Odin has no idea what he's doing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: This chapter discusses the loss of a child, and exposure of a child. 
> 
> This is not a happy chapter. 
> 
> Un-beta'd.

_Why did you take me from Jotunheim?_ This is where it all came crashing down. This was the second chance, and Odin knew he wouldn't get another. 

"You were a babe, a few days old at most, abandoned on the ice. I couldn't leave you there to die."

"What more than that?!" there was frustration and pain writ large on Loki's face. They were perilously close to running in the same rut, getting trapped on the same path that had driven Loki not just up to the frontier of the death-wish, but straight into the heart of the country. 

Raw truth. 

"Nothing more. I swear, by Yggdrasil and the Nine, when I saw you on the ice there was no other motive, no other thought than that," Odin sighed. Loki looked disbelieving, ready to argue. It wasn't enough. Odin was laconic at the best of times, blunt to the point of unkindness at the worst. He thought he understood now, that it wasn't enough to give Loki the bones of the truth. He needed the flesh as well. 

"It was the aftermath of the battle. I had lost my eye, had lost many brave warriors, I could feel the blood of Jotun and Aesir sloshing in my boots. The battle-wrath had left me. I was ready to return to Frigga, and Thor. He had just started talking before I left. And then I heard you. Crying in the temple, in the place where they left their infants to die of exposure, or be rescued. Laufey's son--"

"How? How did you know I was Laufey's son?" Loki was shaking, rage burning in his eyes. If he could have stood, he would have been pacing or fighting.

"The markings on your skin are hereditary. Yours are not as prominent as most, but they are unmistakable."

Loki seemed at accept that for the moment. The tension in his shoulders seemed to have relaxed the smallest amount; Odin hoped that meant he was doing the right thing.

"When I picked you up, you changed form. Changed from Jotun to Aesir before my eyes."

"This form," Loki's sweeping gesture was hindered by the mug, but still eloquent, "is not of your doing? I assumed it was you who imposed it on me."

"No, it is your own. Which was good," Loki growled,"because in hindsight I don't know that I could have changed your form while you were growing. An illusion wouldn't have kept you from giving us frostbite if you were frightened, and transformation would have been far too risky for a growing child to be bound in for years. In that moment, standing alone with you on the ice, I would have taken you in, whether you stayed as a Jotun or Aesir. It was too cold for any infant, and if they had left you to die of exposure before the battle they would not have reclaimed you afterward. I could not let that happen. I wrapped you under my cloak as best I could, and slipped through one of the hidden paths back to Frigga."

"That's another thing. How did you convince Asgard I was your child by blood? I know the Aesir are thick, but even they must have noticed Moth-Frig-- the All-Mother wasn't with child before I showed up."

"She was."

"What? Oh," Loki grew quiet, stared into his mug. Odin took in a deep, shakey breath, trying to steel himself for whatever his son said next. "Did you know? When you took me from Jotenheim?"

"No," Odin spoke softly, afraid his voice would fail if he spoke louder. "I left with hope, and returned to Frigga weeping over an empty cradle." Odin felt the griefs, old and new well up in his breast and he stopped talking. 

He saw before him Frigga, face wet with tears, dress soaked with milk from her engorged breasts, her belly still large but now oddly deflated, sitting before the fire. The tiny funeral boat before her, the child already shrouded, and the empty cradle in the corner. Him, overwhelmed with battle-fatigue, realizing what else he had lost that day, standing frozen in the doorway until the babe in his arms announced loudly, insistently that he was alive, and needed food, warmth, sleep, love. Odin had felt a dreadful, sudden qualm--was this cruelty, to bring her an orphan babe when she had just lost the one she had carried? But at the sound of Loki's wails, Frigga had looked up, had run to embrace Odin, and then taken the tiny baby from his arms which trembled with fatigue. She had called out for Eir to attend to Odin, and tended to Loki herself. 

"Why? Why raise me yourselves? Why not give me to someone else as a war orphan to foster?"

Loki's voice snapped him back to the present. Looking at the man the babe had become, Odin wondered how much did he need to tell. How much could he tell, without somehow making it worse? 

"It was simply never an option. I don't know it was even thought about, let alone discussed. I....You started to cry, almost as soon as we entered the house. I don't know how long you had been exposed; you were hungry, and the snow had melted on your blankets. Frigga took you from my arms, cared for you herself and handed me over to Eir." His missing eye started to ache with the vividness of the memory. He removed the patch and scrubbed at the empty socket. "Why do healing potions always fizz? If you ever lose an eye, ask a friend to knock you over the head before they take you to a healer." Loki shuddered and rapidly blinked. Odin put the patch back and took a long pull of mead before continuing. "Eir had barely got a bandage wrapped around my head before I was called back to the battlefield. There was the terms of surrender to negotiate, prisoners to trade, the field to clear of dead and wounded." 

The aftermath seemed more exhausting than the battle. There was no bloodwrath to get one through endless meetings with the enemy, with commanders, with the wounded, with those laying out the bodies of the fallen. Just sleep snatched on camp beds or quiet corners for a quarter hour, and the knowledge that it needed doing, that the sooner it got done the sooner home. 

"It was two, three days before I was able to return. There was no question of doing anything but raising you ourselves by then. It would have killed Frigga to give you up, and Thor was certain that you were the brother he had felt kick for all those months. Eir and the assistant she brought along swore an unbreakable oath to never reveal what happened. And we returned with you, to a rejoicing Asgard. The war had been won, and the queen safely delivered of another prince."

"What of Heimdal? Surely he knew all this."

"The house was hidden from his sight. If the battle had gone badly, he could not give up what he did not know." Loki looked suspicious. "You think you are the only one to hide from the Gatekeeper's sight? This entire chamber is warded against his sight, though the wards are not always active."

"Why?" Loki looked genuinely confused. "Why prevent the watcher from doing his duty to you?"

"Come now Loki, I know you are not an innocent. These are the king and queen's bedchamber and that their marital bed." Loki started to flush, what would have probably been a deep crimson if he had had more blood in him. Odin couldn't resist. "Frigga and I did ever desire privacy to enjoy--"

"Gngh, enough!" croaked Loki, before gulping down the rest of his mead and studiously examining the bottom of the mug. "Please."

Odin laughed. At first a wry chuckle, it soon took over until he was doubled over. The tease had not been that funny, but it had loosed something that had been bound up in tension and worry and fretting and sorrow for years. When it had run its course and Odin found he could breathe again, he reached for the flagon of mead to refill their mugs. "Forgive me, Loki. It's a father's obligation to embarrass his children so in private."

Loki was was no longer red-faced, but white, shaking with rage. He threw his mug to the floor where it shattered on the stone. "You are not my father! I am not your son!" the words fell like blows. "I'm a _replacement_ , a cast off you picked up from another's trash heap because you couldn't get a spare on Frigga, or else she--"

"SILENCE!" Odin was roaring and on his feet in power before he could stop himself. He would have listened to all the abuse Loki could have thrown at him, but he could not hear him impugn Frigga so. And yet it jepordized all he was trying to do. He sighed, tried to soften the command by adding, "before you say something neither of us can forgive," and without thinking vanished the broken mug. The slight tug from even this small thing reminded him how very, very close he was to the edge. He walked to the other side of the room to get a new mug, rather than bringing one into existence. It also gave them time to come off the boil, before something irredeemable was said. 

Odin stood at the sideboard, holding the new mug. He had not meant to hurt Loki with his teasing, any more than he had meant to hurt Loki by concealing his origins. But good intentions are no guarantee of good outcomes; loving someone did not prevent you from hurting them. And he had, without meaning to, but also without raising a finger to stop it, caused Loki a great deal of pain. 

He refilled the mug, and turned back to his youngest. Despair screamed from every tense, trembling line. Odin desperately wanted to wipe clean that despair, to fix it. The thought _a memory charm_ slithered insidiously into his mind, the temptation to make Loki forget everything since before Jotunheim. It would be _so easy_. Much easier than healing this festering wound, to just cut it off like a gangrenous limb. 

_Coward._

Odin went and stood beside his son. It seemed to him that if Loki pressed any harder against his eyes, he would gouge them out. 

"I'm sorry, Loki." He offered the mug, waited until Loki took it hesitantly in his hands, looking confused. "It was thoughtlessness on my part. I intended no malice, but a jest unshared is sharper than a blade." 

More than words, you old fool. Odin bent at the waist, stiffly, not much but more than he had to anyone but Frigga in millennia. "I beg your forgiveness."

Odin watched Loki from the corner of his eye, waiting for any sign of acceptance. Rejection, he suspected, would be noisy and not open to interpretation, while anything else was likely to be subtle. At last, there was the barest inclination of the head. It was an equivocal gesture, communicating nothing but a temporary cessation of hostilities. Odin stayed bent a moment longer, to put as much emphasis on his point as he could. Then he retook his seat. What he wanted to say next might not be wise, he thought, but it needed to be said. "You are and were many things, Loki, but you were never a replacement. One child does not and cannot replace another. You were no more a replacement than Thor."

Loki's brow furrowed in puzzlement, then seemed to have an epiphany. 

"The child I _replaced_ , it wasn't the first you lost, was it? How many, _All-Father_? How many of _your_ children's birthright was to die?!"

It had been the wrong thing to say. Clearly wrong. Thrown back in his face with venom and spite. 

Just as he had been spiteful. Take your own medicine, All-Father.

Stay the course. 

"Four. The rose bushes in your mother's garden are their memorials. There are five now, because she planted one for you."

The anger and rebellion still smoldered on his son's face. "I wouldn't know, not being out of the dungeons until yesterday," Loki spat. 

An impulse, and Odin was on his feet and extending his hand to Loki. "Come. You should see it."

"See my own memorial?" The change of tactic seemed to confuse Loki, as well it might because Odin had not been planning this. He took the mug from Loki's hand and hauled him to his feet; an arm around his back to keep the quilt from sliding off, Loki's arm over Odin's shoulder, and they were walking to the garden as quickly as Odin thought Loki could go, taking as much of his weight as Loki would allow. 

"What of Heimdall?"

"The gardens are warded against his sight as well." Frigga valued privacy, insisted the wards be extended so she could garden without feeling watched if she so chose. Could weave spells into her herbs in solitude.

They passed out into the chill night air; as they walked, soft witch lights appeared to illuminate the paths and beds for a few yards in every direction with the warm light of a summer sunset. Odin could hear Loki's breath hiss between clenched teeth, feel him start to tremble with effort and shiver with cold. He wondered if he was going the right thing, or if this was another mistake. Whether his decisions were planned or rash, he never seemed to be able to reach Loki. When they reached the rose beds, he sat on a small bench, lowering Loki down with him. He rewrapped the quilt gruffly, not looking his son in the eye, and then looked forward resolutely. 

 

"There is your memorial, Loki."


	5. Chapter 3: Every one can master a grief but he that has it. (Loki POV)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Odin tries to have an honest conversation with Loki, and it goes poorly. 
> 
> Loki would really like to be anywhere else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: This chapter discusses the loss of a child, exposure of a child and contains suicidal thoughts.
> 
> This is not a happy chapter.
> 
> Un-beta'd.

Loki waited, not entirely sure what he wanted to hear. Part of him wanted to hear the same infuriatingly unsatisfactory answers, wanted to have a reason to be furious and then to vent that fury. Part of him wanted actual answers, whether that led to fury or peace. A small, quiet part of him suspected there would be sorrow in the answers, no matter what the answer was. 

"You were a babe, a few days old at most, abandoned on the ice. I couldn't leave you there to die."

The banked fire of anger flared to life. This was no answer. Odin would not be so sentimental. Could not have been so sentimental. He was calculating. _"Everything your father does has a purpose"_. It was inconceivable that that was the reason. "What more than that?!" 

"Nothing more. I swear, by Yggdrasil and the Nine, when I saw you on the ice there was no other motive, no other thought than that." That was a potent oath, but still not enough. "When I saw you" was rather qualifying for an oath, after all. Biting words were on the tip of his tongue, when Odin gave a heavy sigh and, unexpectedly, continued. "It was the aftermath of the battle. I had lost my eye, had lost many brave warriors, I could feel the blood of Jotun and Aesir sloshing in my boots. The battle-wrath had left me. I was ready to return to Frigga, and Thor. He had just started talking before I left, simple things like "bye bye". And then I heard you. Crying in the temple, in the place where they left their infants to die of exposure, or be rescued. Laufey's son--" 

_Ha! How could he know that? he was lying through his teeth_ Loki could feel himself shaking, clutched the mug tighter. He wanted, needed answers. He needed, wanted to run away. "How? How did you know I was Laufey's son?"

"The markings on your skin are hereditary. Yours are not as prominent as most, but they are unmistakable."

Odin would have seen enough of Laufey to recognize the whorls. Had just defeated him in battle. Loki was getting actual answers. A treacherous tendril of hope began to unfurl, while suspicion prowled whispering _Odin lies. Why would he tell you, his pet monster, anything true?_

"When I picked you up, you changed form. Changed from Jotun to Aesir before my eyes."

Loki wanted to do a dramatic sweeping gesture, but found it impossible to do satisfactorily while holding mug of hot mead. "This form is not of your doing? I assumed it was you who imposed it on me."

Odin looked slightly taken aback at the question. "No, it is your own. Which was good," Loki snarled almost instinctively at the implied slight to his kind _you tried to kill them all_ but Odin plowed ahead,"because in hindsight I don't know that I could have changed your form while you were growing. An illusion wouldn't have kept you from giving us frostbite if you were frightened, and transformation would have been far too risky for a growing child to be bound in for years." That was not something Loki had considered. Even with all his experience, the problems posed by hiding a child's true form for centuries had not occurred to him. "In that moment, standing alone with you on the ice, I would have taken you in, whether you stayed as a Jotun or Aesir. It was too cold for any infant, and if they had left you to die of exposure before the battle they would not have reclaimed you afterward. I could not let that happen. I wrapped you under my cloak as best I could, and slipped through one of the hidden paths back to Frigga."

Now, that he had wondered about. Asking Frigga had never seemed right. But here was another point of attack, another thing to whet his anger against.

"How did you convince Asgard I was your child by blood? I know the Aesir are thick, but even they must have noticed Moth-Frig-- the All-Mother wasn't with child before I showed up."

"She was."

 _Frigga had been pregnant?_ Of all the explanations Loki had conjured for himself--Asgard wide conspiracies, enchantments, ludicrously elaborate lies by Odin--he had not considered the most obvious, but most tragic, explanation. A lost child. "Oh." The silence stretched between them as Loki stared at his mead. When he glanced up, the sorrow in the old man's eye was unbearable. The question he had meant to ask, _What happened to the child?_ was answered in large letters on Odin's face: the child had been lost. A child, unseen but beloved, longed for and snatched away by death. 

The opposite of Loki.

"Did you know? When you took me from Jotenheim?"

"No," Odin spoke softly. "I left with hope, and returned to Frigga weeping over an empty cradle." He fell silent again, staring off into shadows. Loki now studied Odin, looking at him for the first time as someone with hurts of his own. A past that was not just full of feasts and glorious battles and meddling with people's lives, but pain and sorrow and hopes dashed. It occurred to him that he knew almost nothing of Odin beyond what was told in the halls. And now he looked at his not-father, looking small, haggard, weary without his armor. 

"Why? Why raise me yourselves? Why not give me to someone else as a war orphan to foster?" 

"It was simply never an option. I don't know it was even thought about, let alone discussed. I...You started to cry, almost as soon as we entered the house. I don't know how long you had been exposed; you were hungry, and the snow had melted on your blankets. Frigga took you from my arms, cared for you herself and handed me over to Eir." 

Odin removed his eye patch (he never removes his eye patch, what is he doing?) and rubbed his missing eye furiously. "Why do healing potions always fizz? If you ever lose an eye, ask a friend to knock you over the head before they take you to a healer." Loki's eye felt suddenly unbearably uncomfortable as he imagined a potion fizzling, bubbling in his eye. He blinked to try to and clear the sensation, without much luck. "Eir had barely got a bandage wrapped around my head before I was called back to the battlefield. There was the terms of surrender to negotiate, prisoners to trade, the field to clear of dead and wounded." 

Odin stared blankly at something on the floor, obviously collecting his thoughts. Loki rolled his shoulders experimentally, stopped when he felt something grinding his his back. He was healing maddeningly slowly. 

"It was two, three days before I was able to return. There was no question of doing anything but raising you ourselves. It would have killed Frigga to give you up, and Thor was certain that you were the brother he had felt kick for all those months. Eir and the assistant she brought along swore an unbreakable oath to never reveal what happened. And we returned with you, to a rejoicing Asgard. The war had been won, and the queen safely delivered of another prince."

It couldn't have been that easy, that small a conspiracy. 

"What of Heimdall? Surely he knew all this."

"The house was hidden from his sight. If the battle had gone badly, he could not give up what he did not know." It made a kind of sense. But Heimdall always seemed so perturbed when he couldn't see Loki, Loki doubted he wouldn't notice an entire blank spot in the realm, would tolerate not seeing the pregnant queen and crown prince. His doubts must have shown on his face _your mask is slipping_ because Odin went on. "You think you are the only one to hide from the Gatekeeper's sight? This entire chamber is warded against his sight, though the wards are not always active."

That was news to Loki. "Why? Why prevent the watcher from doing his duty to you?"

Odin suddenly looked mischievous. It was deeply unsettling. "Come now Loki, I know you are not an innocent. These are the king and queen's bedchamber and that their marital bed." Oh _Norns_. Now there was an image in his head that he could not get out short of a powerful memory spell, and he felt his ears burn. "Frigga and I did ever desire privacy to enjoy--"

"Gngh, enough," he drank the rest of his mead as quickly as he could and looked at the bottom of the mug to avoid catching Odin's eye, which he was sure was still twinkling with jovial paternal malice, "please." It came out sounding choked. 

Odin laughed. It started out as a dry chuckle, which was embarrassing but bearable. But it soon became guffaws, intolerable, body shaking laughter and the rage that had banked at the thought of Frigga's ( _not_ Odin's) grief roared to life. It was bad enough to have all the memories of Thor's teasing (it's what brothers do, Loki) or the Warriors Three mockery (friendly ribbing, Loki) or the taunts of Thor's mortals, so call Avengers ringing in his ears (boastful battle-banter. Tit for tat, Loki). 

Blood roared in his ears and his knuckles whitened as he strangled the mug in place of Odin's throat. Imagined himself stalking haughtily out of the room, knew without trying he would fall on his face if he tried to stand up, compounding humiliation. Loki was on the verge of screaming at him to _shut up, shut up, shut up_ when the laughter died back to a chuckle, and Odin reached for the bottle of mead, saying as he did, "Forgive me, Loki. It's a father's obligation to embarrass his children so in private."

Loki threw his mug on the ground, or rather he tried to but really all he did was give it a slight sideways momentum as it fell. A child knocking their mug off the table in a fit of pique instead of the manly, dramatic gesture it was supposed to be. _Failure failure failure. What good are you if you can't even throw a mug correctly, worthless runt_. "You are not my father! I am not your son! I'm a _replacement_ , a cast off you picked up from another's trash heap because you couldn't get a spare on Frigga, or else she--"

"SILENCE" roared Odin, on his feet and full of power again, making Loki literally bite his tongue. "Before you say something neither of us can forgive," he finished more quietly, vanishing the broken crockery with a flick of his fingers, and walked away.

Loki seethed, both at the rebuke and at himself for coming so close to maligning Frigga. _Mother_. The one person in his life who had been consistent, in kindness, in counsel, in love. Maybe it would have been better if he had died, cast out and forsaken. Certainly it would have been better if he had managed to die on the Bifrost. A failed experiment in generosity, rather than whatever it was he had become. 

He closed his eyes and pressed them with fingertips hard enough to hurt, wishing this, all this, these past _years_ were some kind of terrible, fevered dream. Maybe the spear that ran through his leg on that planet, whatsitsname, in the backwaters of the galaxy had been poisoned. Maybe he was really in a healing room, out of his mind with fever and whatever that awful medicine was Eir dosed out to ensure her patients stayed in bed. Maybe he wasn't really a frost giant, or a traitor, or a failed conqueror, or an oathbreaker. Maybe he would wake up and find Frigga at her needlework beside him, and Thor ready to smuggle in real food from the kitchens. 

"I'm sorry, Loki."

He opened his eyes to Odin standing beside him, a new mug of steaming mead in hand. Another peace offering. Loki took it, feeling unmoored again. "It was thoughtlessness on my part. I intended no malice, but a jest unshared is sharper than a blade." He bowed, slightly, at the waist. "I beg your forgiveness."

 _I beg your forgiveness_? What was Odin _doing,_? Kings don't bow, the All-Father doesn't bow, especially not to traitors. Where was the trick? What did Odin want him to do? Throw open his arms and forgive all? Loki wanted to throw the mead into his face, storm out of the room, out of Asgard, out of the universe. 

He could do none of that at present. And for once, Loki found himself without words. So he inclined his head in the vaguest gesture he could manage, equivocal as to acceptance, forgiveness or any other emotive action on his part. 

Odin stayed bent a moment longer, and then took his seat with a sigh. "You are and were many things, Loki, but you were never a replacement. One child does not and cannot replace another. You were no more a replacement than Thor." 

_Thor, a replacement? Replacement for whom?_ A memory flashed before Loki's eyes, Odin holding back tears at Thor's failed coronation. _Thor, my firstborn_.

"The child I _replaced_ ," Odin's wince was priceless, "it wasn't the first you lost, was it?" Confirmation was written all over the old man's face. "How many, _All-Father_? How many of _your_ children's birthright was to die?!"

"Four." Odin looked broken. It was less satisfying than Loki thought it would be. He expected retribution. Wrath. Another show of power. Not this sadness. It wasn't fun to see Odin mournful. Damn it, he wanted a fight, not this rawness. "The rose bushes in your mother's garden are their memorials. There are five now, because she planted one for you."

"I wouldn't know, not being out of the dungeons until yesterday," Loki spat. If he goaded Odin enough, stuck him with enough verbal daggers, maybe Odin would just run him through, and finish what the Kursed started. 

Odin stood up suddenly and held out his arm. "Come. You should see it."

"See my own memorial?" He cast around for a table in easy reach to put his mug down on, before Odin plucked it from his hand and was hauling him to his feet. The quilt stuck to the wound on his back, but Odin seemed to have thought of this and put his hand on Loki's back just above the wound, holding the quilt in place. Loki's right arm was pulled over Odin's shoulder, and Odin slid his left hand around, never letting the quilt move, to grasp Loki under the other arm, taking most of Loki's weight in the process. Then he firmly started walking towards the gardens. 

Loki scrambled for a reason to stop. "What of Heimdall?"

"The gardens are warded against his sight as well."

Loki was _not_ thinking about why that might be. 

They passed out into the chill night air; as they walked, soft witch lights appeared to illuminate the paths and beds for a few yards in every direction with the warm light of a thousand candles. By the time they reached the corner with the rose bushes, every step jarred painfully and Loki was trembling from the effort and the cold. Odin sat on a low bench, bringing Loki inexorably with him. He brusquely reset the quilt, and Loki grabbed at the edges, holding it close around him. 

"There is your memorial, Loki."


	7. The questions we should have asked long ago (Odin's POV)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Odin tells Loki the truth about his children, and tries to break the stalemate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So much for a Christmas posting. 
> 
> trigger warns: child death, still birth

Odin stared straight ahead, not daring to look at Loki. He could just see the dark hair and the bright quilt out of the corner of his eye, enough to be able to react if Loki started to pitch off the backless bench. 

Maybe it would be easier not to have to look each other in the eye. 

He pointed towards the furthermost rose bush, the with largest and most gnarled roots. Pale white blossoms perfumed the night in their riot of life. "That was the first that Frigga planted, to remember our first child. We called him Baldr; he was stillborn when Frigga was perhaps two-thirds of the way through her pregnancy. We attended a banquet on Vanaheim, to commemorate the end of the war between us, and shortly afterward Frigga became violently ill, and Baldr died within her. Officially, one of the delicacies was underripe. Privately, we suspected poison or magic, but there was no proof, no evidence, no culprit. We returned to Asgard, performed the rites before all, mourned with each other, and Frigga planted that rose."

If Loki reacted, or was even listening, Odin could not tell. He plunged onward, letting the words come as they would after so many years of silence. 

"Those two were planted together," he pointed to the next two in the bed, their branches tangled and their blossoms the pale yellow of spring cream. "Our twins, Vithar and Var. They were born too soon; Eir couldn't stop it. We held them as they drew their few breaths. We bathed them and dressed them in shrouds instead of swaddling. We performed the rites before Asgard, and wept together, and Frigga planted the roses."

Odin was surprised that his voice was level, the tears quiet. The grief felt every bit as stinging, the hurt every bit as great. But it didn't rob him of his voice as it used. 

"That one is for Vali," pointing to a rose that seemed to blaze by the golden witch lights, was a soft white in sunlight. "I never learned why we lost him. Frigga never said, I never asked Eir behind her back. We performed his rites in private, and mourned together, and Frigga planted this rose."

Loki was still sitting, the quilt trembling, his teeth chattering occasionally. 

"That one is for our son, Loki." Odin silently asked Frigga for help--strength or the right words or whatever it was that was needed to get through his son's thick skull--as Loki snarled. "Frigga did not bear him, I did not sire him, but he was our son. He came to us the day we lost Vali. We watched him grow from infancy to manhood. He was quick, and clever. A skilled fighter with knives, and a formidable mage. He could be cruel; his mind was double edged, as able to form plans to help as to harm. We loved him dearly, tried to show him he was loved. And we hurt him, and ignored the hurt until one day it broke open, like an infected wound, and spewed forth poison. In the end, a realm lay in ruins, the Bifrost was shattered, and he had fallen into the void." Odin risked a glance at Loki before returning his gaze steadfastly ahead. "There was no body to put in the funeral boat. But we held the funeral regardless. And mourned. And Frigga planted that rose."

Odin fell silent. Loki had been silent except the ragged sound of his breathing and that single snarl. It was impossible to judge a reaction based on what he could see out of the corner of his eye. And yet he was loathe to turn, to demand a response, and so he sat, and waited, and tried to be patient, which was never really his strength. 

Next to him, Loki hissed in pain, and Odin's head jerked to look before he could stop himself. He snapped his head forward before Loki opened his eyes again, but it was enough to have gotten a good look at his youngest. 

_Haggard_

It had not been many years, little more than the blink of an eye for an Aesir, since that fateful day. But Loki looked like he had aged centuries. There was a set to his jaw, a sag in his shoulders that whispered of trials endured. Lines at the corners of his eyes, his mouth where there should have been none. He seemed careworn in a manner wholly wrong for such a young man. 

He waited, counting the seconds between Loki's labored breaths, staring at the roses. He would have to plant one for Frigga. 

Would have to learn how to plant something. Battle-gods were not known for their green thumbs.

"What would you have of me?"

It wasn't the words themselves, but the quiet despair behind them that cut Odin to the quick.

"I would have you _be well_." He put as much calm and conviction into his words as he could muster. "I would have you hale, and whole, and even happy, if such a thing is possible in this world."

Loki was silent again, and Odin wondered if he had been, somehow, wrong to say it. 

"I--I do not know that I could be any of those things. Even at the All-Father's command."

The words _I would not command_ formed on Odin's lips, but he bit his tongue and let them die unsaid. _Not everything demands a reply. You don't always need the final word._

And yet, something needed to be said. If silence had been right after his torrent of words, it wasn't right now. 

But what was there to say? He had offered his explanations, bared his old scars, tried to show Loki he wasn't a pawn in some cosmic game Odin was playing. What more could he say?

_Must the king make declarations only?_

At length, he asked, "What do _you_ want, Loki?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To say this is late is an understatement. Life decided to throw the banana factory at me.


	8. The questions we should have asked long ago (Loki's POV)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Odin tells Loki thing he does not want to hear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings same as last chapter.

Loki looked at the flower bed in front of him. The four huge rose trees with their hoary trunks were achingly familiar. He had grown up with them, been scratched by their thorns which had changed from kitten-claws to grappling hooks with time. They bloomed almost continuously in the warmer weather, and their perfume _was_ the scent of Frigga's gardens. 

But now the bed was extended by half again, eating up a walkway and part of an herb bed. There was a new, tiny rose planted in the bed, with space to grow and not encroach on the existing roses. But also, Loki noted, with space for another rose on the far side. If these roses were memorials, it looked as though Frigga had not thought herself done with loss. 

Frigga. Loki's heart ached in a way that had nothing to do with being run through by a poisoned blade. When he had been sure that Odin and Thor had cast him aside, literally, by throwing him off the Bifrost, he still knew Frigga loved him. That was something that couldn't be beaten or threatened or burned out of him. Frigga was constant in a way that neither Thor nor Odin were. 

And now she was gone, and Odin was here, and Loki _didn't know what he wanted_. Did Odin want him to beg? To forgive? To grovel? There was no possibility that he actually wanted Loki to take the throne. 

And Loki, Loki wanted to _sleep_. His chest hurt, he could feel bones grinding in his back as he tried to stay upright, and blood trickling down his chest from the still open wound, trailing an icy path down his stomach. And he was close, tantalizingly close to his own rooms, untouched since the day he fell, if Frigga and an oddly talkative servant were to be believed. For a moment, Loki lost himself in a fantasy of slipping away from here, from Odin, through secret passages to his rooms, of throwing his leggings stiff with dust and sweat and blood into the fire, of crawling into _his_ bed, with _his_ sheets and just the right number of blankets and pillows he had finally pummeled into the right shape and _sleeping_. For a day, for a week, and (if he was going to indulge in fantasy he may as well go whole hog) without nightmares. When he woke up he could soak in a tub stocked with his prefered soaps, and maybe, maybe get his hair back under control without a glamour for the first time years. Dress in clothes that had been properly cleaned, not just magicked so while he slept. Steal some food from the kitchens and then sleep another fortnight. 

"That was the first that Frigga planted, to remember our first child." Loki startled out of his fantasy, called back to his bizarre present. "We called him Baldr; he was stillborn when Frigga was perhaps two-thirds of the way through her pregnancy. We attended a banquet on Vanaheim, to commemorate the end of the war between us, and shortly afterward Frigga became violently ill, and Baldr died within her. Officially, one of the delicacies was underripe. Privately, we suspected poison or magic, but there was no proof, no evidence, no culprit. We returned to Asgard, performed the public rites, mourned with each other, and Frigga planted that rose."

Loki was getting the same feeling of disquiet as when one of the older warriors, after enough drink, talked of their wounds. Not the ones that left visible scars but little pain, but the ones that left them maimed, forever broken in someway. A glimpse in to a private hell. 

"Those two were planted together," Odin pointed to two twining roses, so inseperable you had to look at the trunks to be sure they were two bushes, not one. "Our twins, Vithar and Var. They were born too soon; Eir couldn't stop it. We held them as they drew their few breaths. We bathed them and dressed them in shrouds instead of swaddling. We performed the rites before Asgard, and wept together, and Frigga planted the roses." Odin's voice was level, hollow. Tears had wrung the words of emotion ages ago, Loki guessed. 

Loki wished his hands would lose their white-knuckled grasp on the quilt and cover his ears. He didn't want to hear this. Didn't want to hear about dead infants. Didn't want to hear about Frigga's dead infants. Didn't want to think about Odin's dead infants. About Odin as a father, grieving. As anything other than a manipulative, heartless ruler. It was so much easier to stoke his hate against the latter. 

Odin continued, ignoring or unaware of Loki's growing disquiet. "That one is for Vali," pointing to a rose that seemed to glow gold. "I never learned why we lost him. Frigga never said, I never asked Eir behind her back. We performed his rites in private, and mourned together, and Frigga planted this rose."

"The last one is for our son," Loki snarled reflexively,"Loki. Frigga did not bear him, I did not sire him, but he was our son. He came to us the day we lost Vali." Was Odin really going to tell Loki his own story, as a stranger's? "We watched him grow from infancy to manhood. He was quick, and clever. A skilled fighter with knives, and a formidable mage. He could be cruel; his mind was double edged, as able to form plans to help as to harm. We loved him dearly, tried to show him he was loved. And we hurt him, and ignored the hurt until one day it broke open, like an infected wound, and spewed forth poison. In the end, a realm lay in ruins, the Bifrost was shattered, and he had fallen into the void. There was no body to put in the funeral boat. But we held the funeral regardless. And mourned. And Frigga planted that rose."

 _What did Odin want him to do?_ Break down weeping, asking for forgiveness? Offer forgiveness? Tell him the last few centuries hurt was forgotten? 

Loki looked at the rose that was his memorial. It was small yet, hardly even knee high with the boost from the raised bed. Barely a twig. But it bore blossoms despite its youth: three small blooms of white edged with gold, at least in this light. 

Loki stayed silent. How much of this was true? How much was only what Odin thought to be true? Or what he wanted to be true? Or what he wanted Loki to believe was true? He had lied for a thousand years about Loki's parentage, how could he be trusted now? 

_Are you the god of lies or not?_

As Thor knew how to call the lightning and thunder, Loki could, if he chose to, discern truth from falsehood. Not what was truth behind the lie, or motives. But he could, as he described it to Thor when the power first began to manifest, taste it. And that was, partly, where everything had started to fall apart. As his powers grew, he could taste the slight bitterness of falsity in speaking with Odin. Never enough to call him out, to say _you are lying_ but enough to erode the trust that had been there in childhood. 

It was a power Loki didn't actually use all that often. It turns out that a palace, full of servants and soldiers, guests and prisoners, was also awash in lies. Small lies, mostly, but some were awful enough to make him gag. And it turned out that having a reputation for being the god of lies and saying "you're lying" was often enough to bring out the truth. It was, however, very useful for asking directions on quests with Thor. There were a shocking number of old women and woodcutters in the middle of nowhere with a grudge against Asgard. 

_What are you afraid of?_

Loki tasted the air, hissing slightly as his wound suddenly stopped healing for a moment and a bone shard snapped back out of place. 

Truth, which tasted like sweet water from a spring, hung in the air.

Odin, for once, didn't have the miasma of falsehood wrapped around him like a cloud.

But it didn't erase the centuries of lies, or the pain Loki had felt on learning the truth, or the scars he had gained afterward. He had the truth, and had no idea what to do with it. 

The silence stretched between them, uncomfortable and fragile. 

"What would you have of me?" Loki whispered at last, too tired fight anymore.

"I would have you _be well_. I would have you hale, and whole, and even happy, if such a thing is possible in this world." The words were measured, quiet, and fell with the weight of a mountainside. Loki licked his lips, felt the rough dry skin snag his tongue. If Odin had said "I would have you move Asgard to far branches of Yggdrasil", Loki wasn't sure but that would have been an easier task for him. 

"I--I do not know that I could be any of those things. Even at the All-Father's command."

A soft wind stirred the rose canes to life with a soft _shush, shush, shush_. Loki watched the fragile blooms dance like a thousand fireflies. 

Could he? Could he _ever_ be whole? Or hale? Happiness was, he considered, entirely out of reach. But given the space, the time, to heal, could he be well? Loki really was not sure. He had been living twisted, hurt, hidden so long he wasn't sure he would recognize wellness if it found him and hit him upside the head.

"What do _you_ want, Loki?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One day, I will post in a timely fashion. Today is not that day.
> 
> Also, I know that the 'god of lies' title usually goes along with Loki being awesome at prevarication (which, to be fair, he is) but it seemed to me that that isn't really a power--but being able to tell truth from lies would be, and would probably make you a more convincing liar in the process.


	9. Chapter 5a: To sleep (Odin's POV)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Graphic descriptions of wounds.

"Sleep." The reply was immediate, and slightly desperate. 

Odin found himself smiling in spite of himself. It was a sentiment he could utterly sympathize with. He opened his mouth to say so, and then shut it again. He rose to his feet, feeling joints creak and pop in a way that made him feel every minute of his 4000 years, and offered his hand to Loki. "I can only offer the space. I'm afraid the power to grant sleep was not given to me."

Loki seemed to study his hand for a moment, as though he couldn't quite see it, or perhaps believe it was there, before reaching out to grasp Odin's wrist and haul himself to his feet. He swayed dangerously until Odin lent him his supporting bulk, and they started the slow, short walk back inside. 

"How is your wound?" Odin could smell the fresh blood, hoped this was a better way to go about it than the command "show me". 

"Painful," Loki sounded strained. 

"Would you permit me look at it before I leave you to get what rest is left in the night?"

Loki nodded sharply and Odin eased him down into the chair before fetching warm water and a clean cloth from the washroom. He set to work separating the quilt from the wound with as much gentleness as he could. Not nearly enough, to judge by the increasing tension in his son's shoulders and the bitten off hisses of pain. It was possible to use a cleaning spell for this, but it took a lot of concentration and delicacy to removed the blood from the blanket and skin, and not the veins and arteries underneath. The novice healers practiced for years on papercuts. Odin had never managed to master it. At last the quilt was freed and he draped it over the back of the chair; rather sodden pillows than a damp, chilled Loki. 

The wound was ugly, ragged edges where the blade had punched, rather than sliced, through and pressing carefully Odin could still see broken shards of bone. But at least he could not see lungs anymore, so it was improving, however slowly. It bled sluggishly, as did the wound on Loki's chest when he leaned back to allow an inspection, where muscle gaped disconcertingly with every inhale. 

"Should it not have healed more than this by now?" Loki sounded worried this time, not annoyed. 

Secretly Odin agreed; he had expected the bones to have mended, or at least the bleeding to have stopped. But then again, even with his vast experience at being stabbed with poisoned blades, he had never actually died from one. Perhaps the poison had done damage he could not see, and Loki's resources were simply otherwise occupied. 

"It was an ancient and potent poison, and an unnecessarily large and obviously blunt blade." Odin let the sneer at a poor weapon mask his concern. "I think there was a salve Frigga used to make for such things." 'Such things' had previously consisted of injuries that were more visible than might be desirable--a black eye after an assasination attempt, a slash across the hand before a diplomatic banquet-- not wounds that were healing at a fraction of the pace they should.

He retreated into Frigga's solar and rummaged around until he found the jar he had been in mind of. Opening it, however, his heart sank. The milky salve was just that, a salve--thick and waxy. There was no way to get it onto the wounds, short of applying it like mortar to a crack in a wall with a trowel. A further delve amongst the jars, bottles and ampules unearthed a bottle with a similar label, but the pearlescent contents were the consistency of honey warm from the comb. As a afterthought, Odin also took a small bottle whose contents were the color of very old wine, and a large roll of bandages. Few, he mused, would have thought that the All-mother's solar was nearly as well stocked as the halls of healing; really all she had been missing was a soul-forge. 

Loki was collapsed back into the chair, somehow even paler and with a sheen of sweat on his face. From the way he was biting his lip hard enough for blood to be running down his chin, Odin guessed he had tried to examine the wound himself. Silly boy. 

"Here, drink this." he held the red potion out to Loki, who seemed to open his eyes only with effort. "It should help with the blood loss."

"Should?"

Odin made no reply. Those struck by a Kursed blade did not, as a rule, live to deal with the long term effects of the poison. And healing magic had not been a focused study for the All-father. So he was, at what he considered the worst possible moment, improvising. Loki stared at him for a long moment, before breaking the seal and downing the potion. He pulled a face before setting the empty bottle down. "Tastes like copper pennies and bilge water," he complained. 

Odin just cocked an eyebrow and shrugged an apology before opening the remaining bottle. Loki tensed as he braced for the expected unpleasant side effect of a healing potion--a stinging or burning or fizzing. Odin knew of at least one that operated as a series of small explosions to drive in the healing magic. It was effective, dramatic, and quite frequently traumatic. He supposed he should be grateful Eir hadn't used that one on his eye. But as he poured the potion into the wound, Loki seemed to relax, incrementally and then completely. There was no bubbling or smoking, but the wounnd seemed to be drinking the entire bottle. Odin worried there would be none left for Loki's back, which was surely just as bad. With less than a quarter of the bottle left, the potion started to well up out of the wound. Odin stopped pouring, and the unguent seemed to form a seal over the wound, shimmering wetly. Odin handed Loki the roll of bandages, which he unrolled and lay the end against the wound on his chest while leaning forward so Odin could treat Loki's back. That done, Odin began to wind the bandage around Loki's torso. 

"Why didn't you tell me?" It sounded plaintive. Did he mean his heritage? Or Odin's other children? Probably the former. He had asked that of Frigga, hadn't he? While Odin slept?

"Ah. The short answer is I was a coward." Loki started and Odin considered that he could have perhaps said that less abruptly. "The long answer is, at first you were too young. A toddler is a bad secret keeper, and your safety, your life, relied on you being a son of Odin. Then, when you were of an age to be trusted, your and Thor's powers started manifesting, but your Aesir form never wavered. I told myself you had enough to worry about, between Thor accidentally welding you into your armor and you accidentally setting his hair on fire and the hundred other incidents as you two learned to control your powers." He wound the bandage over Loki's shoulder to prevent it from sliding down to his waist. "But the truth is I had no idea how to tell you, or to answer questions you might have, and I took the easy road when it was presented to me." The roll of bandage was nearly out, but the wound were covered and the wrapping secure enough to survive at least some tossing and turning. Odin tied it off like a field bandage with a sturdy knot. "Perhaps I was being tested; if so, I must have been found unworthy because it was surely unworthy of me to do what was easy for me, rather than right for you." Loki looked up at him over his shoulder, an odd glint in his eye. 

"Perhaps you should have spent more time on Midgard. It is a famed curative for unworthiness."

Was that a jest, or a jab? Odin could not tell, and he was not sure Loki knew himself. Better to assume the former.

"Ha! Perhaps I should have." Odin offered his hand again, and Loki took it without hesitation this time. He stood like a boy allowed to stay late at a feast, swaying like he was at sea in a storm. Odin took his arm over his shoulder in the time-honored fashion, and tried to hold his son's waist to steady him. Normally, all the leather and armour an Asgardian wore offered a plethora of handholds for such a task. But all Loki had on were bandages and his leather leggings, neither of which was well suited to such things. And, although Loki didn't seem to notice, his son was clearly falling asleep on his feet. His eyes were fluttering closed, and every third step or so his legs would give out. The walk to the alcove with the bed never seemed so long. About halfway there, Loki seemed to realize where they were headed and tried to stop it. 

"No, I can't possibly..." he sounded vaguely horrified, and Odin felt a pang of guilt. 

"I'm trully sorry, Loki. I haven't the strength to bring you to your rooms in secret." He likely didn't have the strength to get Loki to his rooms in broad daylight, with the corridors lined with guards and healers. But he wouldn't admit that to himself, let alone his son. 

"I can't sleep in your--"

"Not mine. Frigga's. And I can't--" the grief surged up, raw and fresh and ready to overwhelm him. He choked on the tears, wrenched his mind away from the memory of Frigga's broken body, of her blood cover his hands, of closing her mouth and eyes and nose. Ground his teeth and steeled himself. "My bed is in my dressing room. I will sleep there." There were no ghosts in his dressing room. 

Loki raised no more objections, and resumed walking willingly where Odin led. His eyes were just barely open, his head dropping to his chest and jerking up, and by the time they reached the bed Odin was supporting nearly all Loki's weight. The bed had been turned down by some servant earlier in the day, and when Odin turned them so Loki's calves brushed against the bed, it only meant controlling the fall. Easing Loki's arm off his shoulder, a hand guiding his head down to the pillow, helping his son's clumsy attempts to bring his feet up onto the mattress. Then drawing the bedclothes up over his youngest as Loki's eyes closed with soft sigh. 

Odin waved a hand and the lights in the alcove dimmed. He stood and watched for several long moments, watching the steady rise and fall of Loki's chest. He remembered how it terrified him, when Thor and then Loki were newborn, that they would pause in their breathing when they slept. Frigga and Eir had told him it was normal, that infants took a few weeks to breathe in a regular rhythm. So long as they didn't turn blue or grey, they were fine. And they had always started breathing again, after skipping one or two and making Odin's heart thump in fear. Even after they had long outgrown that quirk, Odin had found it hard not to check on them at night, to watch a dozen steady breaths, and breathe a sigh of relief as he closed the nursery door. 

Odin turned away, told himself he should get at least a little sleep. His dressing room was well within earshot if Loki woke, but out of sight. From a concealed compartment one of the wardrobes, Odin brought out his favorite nightshirt and pair of soft leggings. They were ancient, and the cuffs had long worn through. The elbows and knees had been patched and darned so many times the patches had darns. Completely unsuitable for a king. Odin kept them hidden lest a well-meaning or overzealous servant remove them for rags. Frigga had tried to mend them once, and it had taken months before they were properly comfortable again. 

Perhaps he should have tried to get Loki into a nightshirt, or change into the clothes the servants brought for him to be dressed in. The leggings he wore had to be stiff with grit and blood. 

The leather strap that held his hair back was soon gone, and Odin scratched roughly at his scalp. He ran his hands over his face as he sank onto the bed that occupied a corner of the small room. He hoped he had managaged to at least do no more damage tonight. Reconcilliation was too much to ask of Loki. Too much had happened, had gone wrong. 

Odin lay down, and wept for Frigga until he too fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter covered a lot less ground than I intended, but this seemed like not a terrible place to pause. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who left feedback in the comments. I've been writing this story in odd moments around writing the dissertation for my PhD, and they have really helped keep my spirits up as I enter the last soul-sucking stretch of the thing.


	10. Chapter 5b: To Sleep (Loki's POV)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Graphic descriptions of wounds

"Sleep." The word was out of his mouth before he had time to think. It should have been momentous, Odin All-Father asking what him what he wanted. But, Norns bearing witness, should the riches and realms of the Nine be spread before him, here in Frigga's garden, all he wanted was sleep. Health or glory or power or happiness could wait. He turned his head suddenly to look at Odin, to see what he made of this banal request.

The corners of Odin's mouth twitched into a smile. He opened his mouth slightly as though to speak, then snapped it closed again. The All-father rose, and offered a hand to Loki. "All I can offer is the space. I'm afraid the power to grant sleep was not given to me."

That...was not what Loki expected. _None_ of this was what Loki expected. Not the waking up alive, not the sad explanations of Odin, not Odin's apology or abrupt trip to the garden, not Odin's quiet acquiesence to Loki's exhaustion. _Where is the asp in the flowerbed?_ There was almost certainly a catch somewhere, but he was damned if he could see it; he could barely see the rosebush in front of him, which was starting to swim as though in a heat haze. 

He had come thus far in this bizarre night, he may as well see it out. 

He grasped Odin's forearm and hauled himself to his feet, nearly toppling over as he couldn't seem to stop the forward momentum on his own, crashing painfully into Odin's solidity. Together they made their way back, and with each step Loki became more aware that something was _wrong_ with his wound. Pain was expected, but he could feel flesh sliding against unhealed flesh, bones grinding, something leaking in a trickle or a gush out of the wound on his chest and down his stomach. 

"How is your wound?"

"Painful." It was no good trying to hide it. There was probably blood dripping on the floor. 

They were approaching the chairs they had abandoned in haste. "Would you allow me look at it before I leave you to get what rest is left in the night?" Odin sounded worried, and like he was trying not to. Loki just gave a terse nod. Something had flared in his back, a pounding, burning pain that seemed to be searing its way to his core. He let Odin do the work of letting him down into the chair and collapsed back against the pillows, panting shallowly until the pain slunk back into its lair. 

Suddenly Odin was in front of him with a steaming basin, and he forced himself to sit up, resting his elbows on his knees for support. He shivered as the quilt was taken off his shoulders, even as the warm water trickled down his back. He clenched his teeth and tried not to hiss as Odin tugged gently at the stuck fabric and pulled at the wound in the process. Somehow the sharp, prickling sting was momentarily worse than the constant throbbing ache of the wound itself. It seemed to take an eternity, Odin soaking and tugging and teasing the quilt free of the unhealed wound. Loki wondered, momentarily, if it wouldn't be better to just rip it off and have done with it, but immediately quailed at the idea as his imagination supplied the sensation, extrapolated from experience, that such an action would produce. He even longed, briefly, for the Halls of Healing, where this could be accomplished by magic. Not that either he or Odin had the skill to wield that spell, he thought with a flash of bitterness, and resolved to master it before he was another year older. 

Finally, _finally_ he felt the quilt pull free and the wound on his back subjected to gentle, agonizing prodding. _It should not still be open._ he thought. On the other hand, he could not recall being impaled through the chest before. Perhaps Odin, with his experience in the matter, knew differently? A heavy hand on his shoulder guided him to lean back, and he looked down at the _chasm_ that yawned in his middle.

"Should it not have healed more than this by now?" he tried to keep the anxiety, the nagging doubt out of his voice. He suspected he did not succeed.

"It was an ancient and potent poison, and an unnecessarily large and obviously blunt blade." Odin's sneer at the poor choice and care of the weapon was a poor cover, Loki thought. It didn't take the God of Lies to see through the paper-thin mask. "I think there was a salve Frigga used to make for such things." He walked off to somewhere behind Loki--Frigga's solar perhaps? And what constituted 'such things'? Impalings? Blunt blades? Unnecessarily large blades? Wounds that refused to heal?

Loki touched the skin around the wound and immediately regretted it as it sent sharp electric shocks surging out from the wound. His head fell back and he bit his lip hard enough to draw blood. If this was his reward for averting the destruction of the universe, Yggdrasil could damn well find some other fool. He was tired of being the whipping boy. 

"Here, drink this. It should help with the blood loss." When did Odin return? How had he not noticed? 

_Should help?_

"Should?"

Odin just shrugged, and waited for Loki to take the bottle. It's contents were carmine, and looked thick. _Like congealed blood_ a helpful voice in his head supplied. Loki supposed that, in his current state, so long as it did not _drain_ him of blood, it could not hurt, and took it with a hand that did _not_ shake (through a supreme effort of will). He gave it a withering glare for good measure before breaking the wax seal with his thumbnail and tossing it as far back in his mouth as he could. There was not much, fortunately, but his attempts to avoid it touching his tongue did nothing to avoid tasting it. It tasted like blood. Not fresh blood, which he had the opportunity for direct comparison, but old blood. The taste of waking up after a bad skirmish bound and gagged with a rag soaked in blood from cuts in your mouth and a broken nose. _Copper pennies and bilge water_ , he and Thor had decided one night after several bottles of mead and a very long argument. He said so now. 

Odin raised what seemed like an amused eyebrow and shrugged. He openned the bottle he still held, the size of a small flaggon, and Loki knew there was no putting it off. He tried to brace himself for the sting, or the fizz, or the burn. Knew that it would do no good. Hoped that he wouldn't bite through his tongue. He winced automatically as the first drop dripped into the hole in his chest, waiting for the pain.

That did not come. 

Instead, it was like plunging a burned hand into a cool stream. The ache, the pain that throbbed in time with his heartbeat and seared with every breath deep enough to expand his ribs, seemed to ebb away. There was a brief surge of panic when he was suddenly aware that _he could not feel his heart beating_ , followed by the odd realization that he never knew he was aware of it in the first place. And the panic was quickly replaced by the sheer relief of it. He slowly let go of a breath he had not realized he had been holding, melting into the chair. He seemed to drift, floating on the lack of pain. 

He cracked open an eyelid in mild wonderment that Odin still seemed to be pouring. From the furrowing of the old man's brow, he also seemed concerned that Volstagg had taken up residence in the wound. But then the silvery stuff welled up, and when Odin stopped pouring, shimmered like new wax seal. Loki took the roll of bandage held out to him, and pressed the loose end to his chest. The potion stuck to the fabric, but did not seem inclined to wick. _How odd_. He leaned forward, biting his tongue as something inside that had not been numbed by the potion protested. Loki rested his elbows on the chair arms, and let his head hang as the pain in his back faded to nothing. Then Odin's arms were moving around him, binding the wounds. He was tired, so tired he could almost fall asleep in this position and pitch headfirst onto the hard tiles...

_and never learn the truth_

What if Odin had aquiesced because his offer of truth only lasted tonight? What if Loki slept til dawn and the deal was done?

Stupid, stupid, stupid. 

Tired. Too tired. 

One more question. Of the thousands rattling in his mind...

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Ah." The old, strong arms stuttered in their rhythm, then resumed unhurriedly. "The short answer is I was a coward." Loki nearly broke his neck it snapped around so fast to look at his (not) father's confession (unthinkable. Odin would never admit to cowardice), then resolutely snapped it back to stare at the floor. "The long answer is, at first you were too young. A toddler is a bad secret keeper," true. Loki had met enough toddlers, spent enough time around Volstagg's offspring to know that toddlers talked incessantly of whatever came to their tiny, mile-a-minute minds. "and your safety, your life, relied on you being a son of Odin. Then, when you were of an age to be trusted, your and Thor's powers started manifesting, but your Aesir form never wavered. I told myself you had enough to worry about, between Thor accidentally welding you into your armor and you accidentally setting his hair on fire and the hundred other incidents as you two learned to control your powers." The welding incident. It had been years before Thor had been allowed around people in plate armor again. Loki wondered which time he had set Thor's hair on fire Odin was thinking of. The first time, and a few subsequent times, had been an accident. Most of the times... "But the truth is I had no idea how to tell you, or to answer questions you might have, and I took the easy road when it was presented to me." Odin tied the bandage off with a sturdy knot, and Loki was glad of the numbness as the fabric cinced tight around his chest. Loki tried to take a deep breath, but Odin had known what he was about. The bandages were tight and wrapped around his ribs and over his shoulders. No doubt it would help keep his ribs in place while he slept."Perhaps I was being tested; if so, I must have been found unworthy because it was surely unworthy of me to do what was easy for me, instead of right for you." 

Loki turned to look at his (not) father over his shoulder, and the words tumbled from his lips before he had time to consider them. "Perhaps you should have spent more time on Midgard. It is a famed curative for unworthiness."

Odin's face was a study in maintaining a carefully neutral expression. "Ha! Perhaps I should have." He was flatly refusing to rise to the bait, and Loki was unsure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. Part of him still wanted to have a blazing row, furious and violent, and was seething at Odin's calm. But when Odin held out his arm to help Loki to his feet, he took it. This time he was able to stop himself from careening forward, but only just. He stood there swaying like a drunkard until the All-father took an arm over his shoulder and took charge of their motion. 

Loki's eyes drifted shut for a moment, letting himself be walked to bed like a small child or a man too much in his cups, until a nagging from his sense of direction prompted _you are going to wrong way to be going to your rooms_. His eyes snapped open to see that they were not heading towards the door, but towards the immense carved bed in the far alcove. He dug his feet in for a stumbling moment, protesting as he did "No, I can't possibly..." as some perverse corner of his mind replayed their conversation regarding the silencing wards on the kings chambers.

Odin sighed. "I'm trully sorry, Loki. I haven't the strength to bring you to your rooms in secret."

Any horizontal surface would do. Loki _longed_ for his own bed, but anywhere, anywhere he could be certain he wouldn't fall would do. 

"I can't sleep in your--"

"Not mine. Frigga's. And I can't--" Odin seemed to choke on the words, even as he moved them relentlessly forward. "My bed is in my dressing room. I will sleep there."

Oh. It wasn't really _better_ , to know that it was Frigga's bed. _Thor was probably concieved there, you know. Shut up._ But it was different than knowing he was taking Odin's bed, somehow. And when Odin manuvered them so the backs of Loki's legs brushed against the bed, there was no fight left in him to stop him from falling back onto the cool, soft, clean linen sheets. When Odin guided Loki's head down to the pillow he allowed it, and dragged his leaden legs up onto the mattress after him. 

_You can't trust Odin. He's plotting something._

Loki didn't care. As his head sank into the pillow, smelling of heather or lavender or whatever it was the royal household staff used when it ironned things, it was too much to fight. He felt _safe_. For the first time since Thor's abortive coronation, he was _home_. The mattress was soft, the pillow cool against his cheek, and the blankets heavy and warm.

He was asleep before his suspicious nature could raise any more objections.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: What dreams may come


	11. Chapter 6a: What dreams may come

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Graphic depictions of violence, aftermath of torture. THIS CHAPTER IS RATED M
> 
> In which Odin sets off to rescue Loki from a nightmare, and things do not go according to plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you aren't comfortable with descriptions of vivisection, internal organs, bodily mutilation, you should probably skip this chapter pair and wait for the next pair. I'll post the "too graphic; didn't read" summary before those chapters for anyone who is here for the dad-Odin and less for the wrecked-Loki.

Odin was chasing Frigga through a sunlit forest. Frigga was young, and so was Odin, his red-gold hair only beginning to go grey at the temples. Frigga's hair streamed behind her, falling out of its braids and her hair pins abandoned with their picnic. Her skyblue dress never seemed to snag on the bushes, but nibbly flit around the grabbing twigs. She laughed as she ran, occasionally glancing behind her to cause sudden bursts of blossoms in Odin's path. Odin followed, his own deep laugh a rubbling counterpoint to hers. He wore no armour, just leathers. Carried no real weapons, just a dagger in his boot and another in his belt. The most dangerous thing in the forest was _him_. 

Frigga darted into a small glade, and as Odin followed he found he was surrounded by Friggas. All of them smiling at him teasingly, all nearly identical. If he wanted the game to end, he had to pick the real Frigga. He turned around slowly, watching each one, looking for the small difference that would give away the witch. He had picked wrongly twice before already today. As much fun as it was to chase Frigga, he really wanted to catch her now. 

There. One of them, who had been standing behind and slightly to the right of him as he entered, had a slight flickering of magic at her fingertips. Frigga must want the game to end too, if her tell was that obvious. 

"You are Frigga, my wife, and no other," Odin growled playfully as he charged the flesh and blood woman and caught her up in an embrace, spinning her around. 

"And you are Odin, my husband, and no other," Frigga whispered back into his ear. She ran her fingers through his hair, stopping when she snagged on a braid to disentangle her fingers. "How do you get your hair to stay like that? Have you enchanted it?"

"Ha! Hardly. Just practice." Odin kissed his wife to stop her questions. 

From somewhere in the distance came a scream. Odin spun around, looking for the source of the noise. When he turned back to Frigga, the sunlit glade was gone, and they were standing on a frozen rocky plane, the darkness of a midwinter storm blotting out the cold sun. Bodies lay around them, and Frigga's dress was drenched in blood, the light fading from her eyes as she collapsed into Odin's arms.

"NO!" Not again, he couldn't watch her die again.

The scream came again, louder. Pain and fear forcing vocal cords to make sounds they never, ever should. 

Odin woke with a start, dagger in hand, heart pounding, on his feet and ready to attack before he realized he wasn't on a Norwegian battlefield, wasn't drenched in Frigga's blood, and was once again old. 

A nightmare. Just a-

The scream ended in a gurgling, drowning sound this time. 

_Loki_

Stupid, to think Loki might sleep peacefully. Odin suspected (knew) that was why Loki cast an illusion over his cell every night. Odin allowed Loki to keep the power of illusion for this reason (and not just so Frigga could project herself in). Loki enjoyed privacy, it was true, but his trickster nature was just as happy to annoy the guards with a display of not caring if he was being watched. Had even cast a few extremely prurient illusions to shock a guard who taunted him. Odin had told the guard that if he would mock Loki for unmanliness, he could hardly complain if the god of mischief chose to prove otherwise. 

Odin ran, throwing away the dagger rather than take the time to sheath it carefully. A twist of his fingers and the lights blazed over the bed, showing Loki had somehow ended up on his stomach, tangled in the blankets. Every muscle was taut to the snapping point as he arched his back and screamed again, ending in broken, sobbing breaths. 

Odin pulled the blankets free of the flailing arms, and took Loki's shoulder, rolling him onto his back, and then reeled as Loki's fist connected solidly with his jaw. 

Odin picked himself up off the floor, running a hand over his jaw as he stretched out the pain. He spat blood from where he had bitten his tongue. Loki was no Thor when it came to fighting with fists, but he was no weakling either. Nothing broken, but he would certainly have to dig out that salve in the morning. 

Loki had stopped screaming, but now he was curled in on himself, whimpering and begging, "No, please, I won't do it again, I swear, _please_."

Odin reached out again, resting a hand on Loki's shoulder. "Loki, it's but a dream. Wake up, son." He shook gently, trying to rouse the sleeper. 

"No, please, don't" the litany continued unabated. Odin tried again, with no more luck. Not just a dream then. Something worse. The kind of nightmare that kept the sleeper trapped until it was ready to release him. 

There was little to be done. A command would certainly bring Loki back to consciousness, but would also bring the nightmare. Odin had tried to help a shieldbrother in that way soon after he became All-father. The man had spent a week trapped, fully awake, in his horror before the healers found a way to put him back to sleep. It was months before he was anything but a jibbering wreck. 

There was another way, nearly as dangerous. 

Loki screamed. 

Anything was better than this. 

Odin dragged over a chair, clasped one of Loki's trembling hands, and sent his mind into Loki's nightmare. 

Walking along the dark edges of the dream, where the reality Loki was experiencing faded to nothing like the wings of a stage, Odin got his bearings. Barging in without knowing what he faced would be disasterous, could leave Loki's mind shattered beyond hope of repair. He saw a barren world, carved like an outlaw's hideout beneath the surface. Chittering, monstrous metal creatures scuttled about like insects. Chitauri. 

This must be where Loki fetched up after he fell. If so, it seemed likely he was caught in a memory, or memories. If Odin had known to come here, after Loki fell, he would have been dressed for a fight. He imagined himself dressed in his full battle-armour, Guignir in hand. And if he imagined himself as slightly younger in body, if not in appearance, there was no one to know or blame him. 

Odin walked through the barrier to the cave he knew Loki must be, since this was Loki's dream. Calling it a _cell_ would be to bestow it a dignity which it was not due. The barrier fizzled as he passed through it, but gave him no resistence, as he knew it would not. Nothing in the dream was real to him unless he chose to treat it so. Which was also a danger--the _dreamer_ thought it all real. If he violated the reality too greatly, it could seriously damage Loki's mind. 

The passage into the cave-prison was a few feet thick, and Odin tread carefully, not sure what he would encounter within.

He emerged into a gloom lit only by flickering, dim electric lights in shadowed corners. It was damp, and dank, and smelled of misery. Odin called a bright witch light into existence, enough to really see the room.

And in the middle of the space, chained with iron fetters by wrist and broken ankles to the floor, was Loki. He lay on his side, and his skin was the ashen blue-grey of slow suffocation. His eyes were closed, but his lips moved. He was naked except for the tattered remains of his trousers, which Odin suspected he was allowed only because they provided a convenient handle to drag him with. There was weeping wounds where skin had worn away on his stomach, and something protuded sail-like from his back.

No, not _sail-like_. _Wing-like_. 

_The bloodeagle._

There were two types of blood-eagle in Asgard. The first left the victim scarred with the image of an eagle which was carved into the flesh like you might a decorative panel for the feasting hall. For a human it would be death, but for an Asgardian it was temporarily painful and forever humiliating, quite literally. An enchanted knife saw that they would bear the scars in the afterlife. The second was a slow death sentence. Odin had sentenced perhaps ten men to the latter punishment in all his time as All-father. Had witnessed each one, and had no regrets. Each of those men deserved the agony, and the ignominy in Hel. 

All this did nothing to lessen the two-fold rage that boiled in Odin's veins at the sight of Loki's back opened like a wardrobe, his ribs broken off from the spine and spread wide. His protective rage as a father that roared _how dare you do this to my son_ , and his possesive rage as a king that whispered dangerously _this is my subject. How **dare** you mete him punishment_. Bloodlust and bloodwrath tinted his vision red. He would kill them all. And then annihilate their masters. So powerful was his anger, he forgot that there was no mask of flesh to hide behind here. What he thought would be on his face. 

But by the time he saw Loki's eyes bolt open in terror at the fury on Odin's face, it was too late. Odin was not a berserker (if it were possible to go berserk in a dream) but he was close. Loki started his silent pleading again, braced his hands on the ground as though to move away, and then froze. 

Odin strode forward, and slammed Guignir into the chain that bound Loki's left wrist. The links shattered like ice before Mjolnir, and he broke the three remaining chains with equal ferocity.

Odin moved around behind Loki, taking in the extent of the damage, whether the hand that had done the deed was expert or hack. The "wings" of Loki's ribs were leathery, dried sinew clinging to bones that became wetter, more clearly alive as they retreated into Loki's chest. The floor behind Loki was sticky with a pool of blood. It must have poured out of his back when he rolled to his side, partly closing the right 'wing'. In his chest, Odin could see the deflated fleshy sacks of the lungs, and a beating heart that kept Loki alive and suffering. The carver had known his job, for Loki's entrails were still contained by muscle. 

Odin refused to contemplate how long Loki had been like this. He placed a hand on the left 'wing' and shoved. Loki jerked, then twitched as he tried to pant through the agony with lungs that couldn't inflate. The 'wing' moved a quarter turn, the stopped, the desicated muscle too stiff to move any more in a single motion. 

Odin humphed. It would be easier to close up Loki's ribs if he were on his stomach, to improve the leverage. Odin moved to the front, surveyed the arrangement of Loki's long limbs, the knelt down. He judged the relative distances, how far Loki would roll. He could do it all very quickly: roll, grasp, press. 

A hand tugged at his cloak, and he looked down at his son's face. The eyes were glassy, but awake, the lips moving in a desperate, overannunciated plea: Kill me. _Please_.

"No, Loki." He turned back to his task, shifted his foot a little for better clearance of Loki's chest, then turned to check his other leg would not get in the way, when he felt the dagger being pull from his boot with swift and shaking hands. His head jerked around to see Loki pressing the dagger to his throat, the tip just drawing blood as it scraped across the grey skin. Odin lashed out and batted the blade out of his son's hands. He leaned down and growled, "Stop that. I _will_ bring you back to Asgard alive."

Before Loki could come out of that shock, Odin pulled him to his stomach and slammed the broken ribs home. Loki arched, and howled airlessly. The ribs resisted, wanted to spring back to their newly-accustomed position. And the wounds were too large, on this rock so far outside Yggdrasil, for Loki to heal quickly and breath again.

Battlefield medicine. 

Odin imagined his sleeve dagger hot, nearly glowing, and sealed the wounds closed before Loki had come out of the shock, pausing only when the edges of the dream shuddered. Then lay his cloak, lined with silk, over Loki and rolled him onto his back. It was cruel, yes, to lay him on those burns, but he would breathe easier, sooner, that way. 

He watched. After a moment, Loki drew a true breath. 

Now there was noise in the corrider. Guards no doubt. Odin turned and grinned like wolf approaching a weak sheep. Here was something to spend his anger on. 

The first two through the door were impaled on his spear before they registered there was a threat to counter. He tossed their lifeless, weightless (it was a dream) bodies off his spear to dash against the wall. The next walked through the door to find its neck sliced clean through to the bone with the dagger in Odin's left hand, its lifeblood pouring out between its fingers as it slumped to the floor. Now Odin had blood on his face, and it wasn't enough to run the next one through. He dropped the dagger and grabbed it by the throat, felt its momentary struggle for breath, the pulse against his hand before he slammed its head into the wall, crushing its helmet into its brain. 

And the last one, you always sent a message with the last one. 

Guignir made a nasty gut wound on the last one, and Odin dragged the unfortunate creature close to give his message: "Tell your master Loki is _mine_. No barren moon will hide him when I come to take my revenge upon him. Only cowards and slaves take revenge immediately, and I, Odin All-Father, am neither. Tell him he will die in agonies lasting _lifetimes_. Go!"

He ripped his spear out of the thing, and shoved it back through the doorway. Then he turned to face Loki. 

Instead of looking relieved, Loki looked terrified. Not of the creatures, but of Odin. "Please, please, just kill me here," he whispered, frantic.

Odin knelt, and wrapped his bloody hand around the back of Loki's head, tangled in gore-soaked hair, and dragged Loki's face up to his own. "You are _my_ son. I will allow no other to touch you. I will always bring you home. And I _will_ make you understand this, even if I have to pound it through that thick skull with Mjolnir myself."

The fear on Loki's face, the shuttering of his eyes, finally broke through Odin's rage. He had done it again, pushed Loki away when he most needed reassurance. He vanished Guignir with a thought. 

He gathered up his son as gently as he could. Loki would have been no burden outside of the dream, and Odin allowed himself to feel the weight wrapped in his cloak. 

He walked out of the cell, and imagined walking through a crack in the wall into the wings of the dream. He needed to take Loki someplace he would feel safe, but that they knew equally well. He was constructing the next scene for this stage, but it needed to ring true to Loki. Not Loki's rooms then, Odin did not know them well enough. The Halls of Healing were familiar, but not comforting. 

Frigga's garden.

It barely needed the thought before it materialized around them. A warm summer day, the flowers in bloom and the sun making everything golden. 

Odin gently lowered Loki into one of the spring-fed pools, vanishing the cloak as he did. Loki was paying no attention, his eyes squeezed shut and his breath coming in short, ragged pants. The water was deep enough that he would float, but shallow enough that his fingers could brush the bottom, and if he sat up in a panic, he wouldn't be under water. It was just as horrible in a dream as in waking life. 

Odin turned to the palace, wondered if he could conjour Frigga--it was much harder to give dreamsprites versimilitude. But Loki's mind must have registered the scene change, even if Loki did not, for Frigga was running towards him. 

"Look to your son," he told the sprite, and headed for the palace, for the back stage. Frigga gave him a strangely knowing look, and her fingers briefly entwined his as they passed. 

As he slipped back into the shadows, he heard her call out to Loki, and the ruined voice reply, "Mother."

Odin came back to his own aged, decrepit body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who left such kind comments and encouragement with the last chapter pair. They were immensely helpful in getting through these past few weeks, more or less intact. I passed my defense, and can officially select "Dr." on the drop down boxes. 
> 
> If you would like more information on the blood-eagle, allow me to recommend this episode of the fantastic podcast on Old Norse literature, history and culture, Sagathing. 
> 
> https://sagathingpodcast.wordpress.com/2014/03/12/saga-brief-1-the-blood-eagle/


	12. Chapter 6b: What dreams may come

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Graphic depictions of violence, torture. THIS CHAPTER IS RATED M
> 
> In which sleep is not as restful as Loki might have hoped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you aren't comfortable with descriptions of vivisection, internal organs, bodily mutilation, you should probably skip this chapter pair and wait for the next pair. I'll post the "too graphic; didn't read" summary before those chapters for anyone who is here for the dad-Odin and less for the wrecked-Loki.

"Loki!"

Loki snickered as Thor batted ineffectively at his smoking hair and then took pity on him and smothered the fire in his red cape. "Sorry, brother. It just happened."

Thor untangled himself from the fabric and felt his hair for the damage. "You cannot fool me, brother. I know that was purposeful." 

"It was as accidental as your repeatedly shocking me at dinner last night," Loki deadpanned. The awakening of their powers had allowed for new heights (or depths, depending on how one looked at it) of brotherly pranking. Fire and electricity were rife with possibilities. 

"I cannot help that my personality is electric." Even in Loki's dreams, teenaged Thor was insufferable. His hair was shaggy, and his beard was as of yet only a faint fuzz and a few early starters which their mother insisted he shave until he could grow a man's beard. He was still lanky with boyhood, though the muscles across his shoulders and chest were beginning to swell with the work he did in the training yards. Though not all that different in stature or bulk yet, Thor was described as solid, while Loki was slender. 

"Yes, I'm sure that's why only I was affected." Loki picked up a book off the table and feigned interest in the text, a dull treatise on the forging techniques of Niflheim. The dwarfs were great weapons-smiths, but terrible wordsmiths. 

Thor plucked the book out of his hands and tossed it carelessly onto the couch. "Come then. Let us spar and have it out properly."

"Fine," Loki conceded with a dramatic sigh, before grinning and shouting "Race you there!" taking off before Thor realized what was happening. Loki was younger (always, that's how time worked), his face smooth with no trace of nascent beard. But he was faster, nimbler, and far, far cleverer than Thor. An earlier incarnation of Thor had had a whetstone stuck in his head; Loki always wondered if the effect of the injury carried over between cycles even if the stone itself did not. 

Loki ran to the private fighting ring of the royal princes, and grabbed two wooden shortswords off the racks. He spun them in his hands a few times to get the feel of them again, then planted his feet and waited for Thor to come crashing in. The young thunderer skidded into the ring with a cloud of dust, grabbing a battle hammer and a buckler, then immediately swung for Loki. 

Loki dodged easily, and got in a jab with his sword in Thor's side for good measure. If they had been under the watchful eye of their training masters, Loki would have been awarded points. But this was the opening movement of a brotherly brawl--the one who was still standing at the end was the winner. The only rules were no teeth, and no going for the eyes, which was Mother's rule and so much stricter than the no-teeth rule. 

"Come, is that the best the man who will wield the mighty Mjolnir can do?"

"I thought it brotherly to let you win first 'blood'."

They squared off again, shifting their weight from foot to foot, Loki lightly, Thor ponderously in keeping with their chosen tactics. Loki feinted at Thor's hammer arm with his left hand, but struck at the knees. He landed a blow hard enough to knock Thor off balance, and got the buckler across his skull in repayment.

Loki shook his head to clear the stars and they squared off again, the time for taunts past. They fell into a rhythm: trade blows, back off,  
watch for an opening or sign of a new attack. On one attack Thor aimed a blow at Loki's shoulder, but Loki dodged badly and the hammer struck his cheek. The wood was too soft to break bones, but Loki spat blood onto the sand. He summoned one of his small throwing daggers to his hand, and during the next exchange sank it into Thor's side. It was enough to draw blood, but not so deep it would not be healed by the time the fight was over. 

"That's cheating! None of your tricks!" Thor complained as he pulled the blade from his side. 

"None? Now, where's the fun in that?" Loki created two illusory forms of himself, sent one to Thor's right, and left the other standing in his place while he peeled off to Thor's left. Thor's eyes darted uncertainly between the three Loki's, before going for the obvious one in front of him. The hammer crashed right through the illusion, shattering it, but with no substance to absorb the momentum, Thor's swing swung him around, while Loki laughed, "Will you ever not fall for that?"

Thor picked himself up off the sand, tossed his weapons aside, and turned on Loki. He charged, and sent both of them crashing to the ground. He pinned Loki with his greater bulk, and deployed the weapon of elder siblings throughout time and space: tickling, and the knowledge of exactly where to target. 

"No fair!" Loki gasped while trying to bite back the laughter. He writhed, trying to turn over and protect his belly from Thor's fingers. It would leave the ticklish spot on the back of his neck vulnerable, but at least he would have better leverage. He managed it at last, felt the warm sand beneath his fingers

and the cold, bitter grit of a dead asteroid beneath his face. His clothes were rags, shredded by his suicidal fall through the Void. He tried to draw his limbs underneath him, pick himself up and escape to _anywhere else in the cosmos_ , but his wrists and ankles were already bound in shackles. Thor's booming laughter was gone, abandoned a lifetime ago, and the mechanical mockery of the Chitauri filled its place.

"I ask a final time. Will you yield to my master's will?"

Loki ground his teeth, and spat at the Other's feet. "I will be no man's thrall."

"Very well." The boots walked out of Loki's field of vision, and the ground beneath Loki rose until it was waist high to his interrogator. "You killed the one who sired you. I believe Asgard has a strict punishment for father-murder."

The lesser blood-eagle. 

Loki _hoped_ it was the lesser blood-eagle. 

"I have found one skilled in this punishment. Let us see how a false-Odinson may bear his judgement." 

Loki's heart pounded in his chest as he waited for the knife to bite into flesh. When it finally came, the knife was so sharp there was no pain, just a sick qualm that shuddered through his body. The pain came when the second cut pulled at the first, and the searing pain, like electric shocks through the exposed nerves, raced along the wounds. With every new cut, there was less of Loki's back that wasn't icy with pain, and he shivered violently when the knife paused in its task, seeking its next path.

Loki was breathless with pain by the time his torturer had finished his work. But though he was a false Odinson, he had done the House of Odin proud: he had not made a noise, not so much as a whimper. His tongue was bleeding, as were the inside of his cheeks, but he would swear that he had not made a sound.

"A very nice eagle, carved in blood. But as I recall now, there are _two_ blood-eagles practiced on Asgard and for my life, I cannot recall which is punishment for father-murder. But first," and here the Other paused, as if for effect, "it would be a shame if the changeling-princeling fainted or died of blood loss before proper punishment could be meeted." In the silence that followed, there was the sound of a hollow canister, followed by the _tap, tap, tap_ of coaxing an unwilling powder out of a container. Surely it could not be as bad as the knife. Loki would prove his worth.

The powder _burned_. It seared his wounds and raced with his blood along limbs that were tied too tightly to fight back. 

Loki screamed. 

This was agony. The knife had been a lover's kiss compared to this. Coals glowing from a forge would burn less painfully than this. This burned not only his back but his blood and his blood bore the burning even out to his fingers. 

Suddenly, the shackles fell away and Loki was free. Were they really so foolish as to bind Loki of Asgard, from time immemorial the god of locks and knots, with simple, mechanical chains? His god-powers could undo those in his sleep, with no conscious direction from him. 

He rolled, and with all the force that the thrill of freedom and agony of his wounds could fuel, struck his torturer. The blow was bone-crunching and sent the creature reeling. 

Loki reached for the threads of magic to wrap an illusion around himself, so he could not be noticed while he found a way off this rock.

And found nothing. 

No, not nothing. There was magic here; it existed after all. But here in the Void, in the Ginnungagap, outside the Universe, the magic was scattered, chaotic. It was like needed a tunic for a feast and being handed a sheep. Someone knew how to use the magic, and with world and time enough he certainly could bend it to his will, but not in the precious seconds he had. 

There was only one path left. Beg for leniency, mercy. 

And he did, to his eternal shame.

But he made no noise when they broke his legs, as punishment for the attempt. Did not cry out when they shackled him to the slab, and the Other caused the locks to glow red hot, melting the mechanism so he could not escape. He may have shamed the House of Odin with his begging, but he would be thrice damned if he cried out again. 

"You may begin." 

Loki felt his heart begin to race. Everyone in Asgard knew what the greater blood-eagle meant. A long, slow death, designed to prolong the pain as long as the king felt just.

Every muscle in his body tensed as the blade bit into his back, cutting a line from neck to waist that scraped against vertebra. He was alight with agony, and as the knife flayed the flesh off his ribs, a hands breadth on either side of his spine, his world shrunk until it was just the pain. He was alone, and existed only as this shattering sack of flesh. He bit his tongue bloody, to keep the words _No no no no no, I can't I can't I can't, it hurts, please_ from escaping his lips. 

When the chisel rested against the joint of the first rib and the spine, he was certain his sinews would snap under the tension like an overtaut bowstring. And when the hammer fell, he opened his mouth and blood poured out, but not a sound. 

As the hammer continued its dreadful walk up his back, he could no longer be certain that the litany was no longer in his head only. After the fifth blow, it was only _No no no no ow ow ow no no no_. After the tenth, it was wordless pleading for death to end it. Hel was better than this. 

But there was no mercy for Loki. 

With the last rib cracked free, the one performing the blood eagle ran a knife through the gaps to break the inner membranes. With each brush of the blade against raged bone, Loki ceased to exist except as hurt.

Then hands reach into his chest, grabbed either side of ribs, and pulled. 

Loki could not scream now. 

There was the sound of echoing drips, the taste of muddy water on his lips, a damp chill crawling over his skin. He teetered on the edge of unconsciousness. He desperately needed air, to draw a full deep breath, but with his back opened, there was nothing for his lungs to pull against. The Aesir, or whatever he was, had many redundant systems. He could survive this lack of breathing for weeks, months, possibly, horribly, years. But it wasn't enough. And every survival instinct he had was keeping him awake, fighting the hypoxia, trying to find a way to get more air. So instead of sinking into oblivion and not noticing as he died by inches, he was forced to be aware of every painful, breathless eternal moment.

If he could just manage to close his back, he would eventually heal enough to breathe. A twitch of the wrist and the rattle of the chain told him that there was likely enough slack to roll over, carefully. Every slight movement brought the pain roaring back to life, like blowing on coals. But eventually he got his hands braced under his shoulders, and accepting that what happened next would hurt like Hel, pushed to roll onto his right side. 

There were snaps as his ribs, which had tried to heal in their new positions, broke again; a feeling like the sinews were tearing, and pooled, semi-congealed blood poured and slithered out of his back to form a puddle on the floor. His vision greyed out for a moment with pain, and then he was left, panting with lungs that could not pant, and knowing he would not have the courage to do that again and finish the job.

There was a noise, a creak of leather and muffled clang of plate armor. Loki kept his eyes closed. Whatever they were planning to do him next, he would deny them the pleasure of watching him anticipate. Then he heard a terrible, familiar _growl_.

Father. 

His eyes snapped open, fresh fear giving him awareness and life. Odin stood on the threshold Loki's cell, blazing in golden glory. 

He was here to drag Loki back to Asgard for punishment. No one could escape the All-Father's wrath. His eyes fairly glowed red with fury at just the sight of Loki. 

Loki tried to scramble backward, remembered his chains, and froze. He was at Odin's scant mercy.

Odin raised Guignir as he strode forward, and for a moment Loki dared hope its target was his heart, a swift death. But then his chains shattered, and he knew he was for the gallows.

Odin moved behind Loki and seemed to be surveying his back. Seeing if they had done the job properly? Perhaps Loki would be spared having to do it again. 

Suddenly there was a hand on what had been his back, and the blaze of agony as Odin tried to shove the left 'wing' back into place. When Loki came back to himself, Odin was kneeling in front of him, seemed to be positioning himself for something. 

Loki had nothing left to lose. He dared reach out and tugged at Odin's cloak to gain his attention. When his father's eyes, blood red, landed on him, Loki mouthed as clearly as he could, "Kill me. _Please_."

"No, Loki." This time wasn't even said sadly. Loki quailed under the weight of those granite words, even as Odin returned to whatever he was planning on doing. He would get no mercy from Odin All-Father. 

But just then he caught sight of Odin's boot dagger, and he made a last bid for a quick death, grabbing it while ignoring the pain in his back, and pressing the sharp, sharp blade to his throat. But his hands shook, scraping the metal against his skin and he lacked the strength to drive the blade home before Odin knocked it away. It had been foolish, for now Odin looked even angrier as he leaned down to stare Loki straight in the eye and ground out, "Stop that. I _will_ bring you back to Asgard alive."

Before Loki could blink, he was on his stomach again, and Odin had slammed his ribs home. 

Loki was pain. He had never been anything else. He was pain incarnate and now he was burning again. 

But now, now there was air with the pain. With each desperate pant that ground bones and pulled burned skin against fabric, there was now blessed, sweet air. 

Odin could take him back to Asgard, could punish him any way he could imagine and Loki would grin and bear it so long as he could keep breathing. 

The sound of Chittauri clattering down the hallway stole Loki's brief joy. Of course they would never let him leave. 

Loki rolled his head in the direction of the door as he heard his guards pass the barrier. He expected Odin might demand to be taken to their master, to discuss terms. 

What he saw was Odin giving no quarter. This was Odin, Lord of the Battlefield, who laid out feasts for ravens and wolves. He drove Guignir through one Chittauri and into the one behind, then flung them off like offending gristle against the wall. The next one went down clutching his throat as blood poured out. Odin grabbed one by the throat and dashed its metal head against the doorway so hard it was crushed. The last one Odin ran through its belly at a weak point, and snarled into its face, "Tell your master Loki is _mine_. No barren moon will hide him when I come to take my revenge upon him. Only cowards and slaves take revenge immediately, and I, Odin All-Father, am neither. Tell him he will die in agonies lasting _lifetimes_. Go!"

The creature stumbled out the door as Odin pushed it off his spear. 

If Loki had been scared of Odin before, he was terrified now. What was he planning for Loki, if he had sworn that kind of revenge against the one who had dared assume to punish Loki in Odin's place? The wrath was rolling off Odin like thunder and he seemed to fill the chamber, towering and smoking with Chittauri blood. Loki pled one last time, whispered with what little breath he had, for mercy. 

"Please, please, just kill me here."

Odin knelt, and wrapped his bloody hand around the back of Loki's head, tangled in gore-soaked hair, and dragged Loki's face up to his own. "You are _my_ son. I will allow no other to touch you. I will always bring you home. And I _will_ make you understand this, even if I have to pound it through that thick skull with Mjolnir myself."

Loki closed his eyes and swallowed thickly, fighting back the sick feeling in his stomach and the panic in his chest that threatened to squeeze out what little air he had. If Odin was so determined to see to his punishment, Loki abandoned all hope here.

He tried to focus on breathing, on how wonderful it was to have air in his lungs, as Odin picked him up and carried him out of the chamber. There was nothing, no air, no solidity, for a moment and then he felt the warmth of the sun on his face, and a gentle breeze carrying the scent of roses caressed his face.

But he kept his eyes closed. He could not bear to see his home again, not when it was so soon to be ripped away. 

When Odin lowered him down, and he felt water lap at his back, Loki opened his eyes in shock. Odin had put him in the spring-fed pool in Frigga's garden. Loki was floating, cool water from deep in Asgard's mountains soothing his back, while the water warmed by the sun played over his chest, dissolved the blood in his hair. Soft water weeds played through his fingers, and his eyes drifted shut as he allowed himself to relax, just a fraction. 

"Loki." 

At the sound of her voice, gentle and kind, Loki's resolve broke.

"Mother."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Repeat from last chapter]. Thank you to everyone who left such kind comments and encouragement with the last chapter pair. They were immensely helpful in getting through these past few weeks, more or less intact. I passed my defense, and can officially select "Dr." on the drop down boxes.
> 
> If you would like more information on the blood-eagle, allow me to recommend this episode of the fantastic podcast on Old Norse literature, history and culture, Sagathing.
> 
> https://sagathingpodcast.wordpress.com/2014/03/12/saga-brief-1-the-blood-eagle/
> 
> [End Repeat]
> 
> As a side note, I wrote most of this chapter while having a prolonged panic attack the day before my defense. I have no idea if that panic comes through, but if there's a few more typos than usual, that's probably why. Mea culpa.


	13. Chapter 7a: Sins of the Father

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Odin tries to cope with what he has seen and done, and makes preparations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary of previous chapter: Odin wakes to find Loki in the throws of nightmare. Unable to wake him, he enters Loki's dreams and discovers the depths of the horrors Loki suffered in his time in the Void. Enraged, Odin rescues Loki in the dream, and changes the dream so he took Loki home to Frigga. But in doing so he terrified Loki, and came very very close to going berserk.

Odin was still angry, furious with Loki's captors, with himself, and now that he was back in his failing, _old_ body he was angry about that. Angry at the pain in his knees and his shoulders, angry at the stiffness in his back, angry at the blankness in his field of view. 

He needed vengeance. Retribution. Blood. He was teetering on the edge of battle-lust, of not-quite-beserk. He needed to feel blood on his face, the sacrifice of suffering. He was Odin All-Father, and he was _not_ a merciful god. There would be no weregild accepted for the wounds Loki had suffered. 

Odin Borson, father of Loki and Thor, widower of Frigga, needed punishment. Needed pain, needed an accounting of his sins taken out in his blood. There could be no weregild for failures such as his. 

He could not bath in the blood of Loki's torturers tonight.

There was none who would dare lay hand on the King of Asgard to mete out his punishment. 

_Control yourself._

Odin took a shuddering breath and held it, willing the red haze from his vision for a moment. He turned to look at Loki. He was in a tangled nest of pillows and blankets, limbs splayed in all directions, and deeply, peacefully asleep. His face was relaxed, the sharp lines that defined him when awake softened. There was even some color back in his cheeks. 

He would likely stay that way til morning now, but Odin set a small spell to alert him to any noise Loki made anyway. Then strode as fast as he could to the far side of the king's chambers. Beyond the main room, beyond his office chamber, into an antechamber he rarely used these days. In the center was a ring twenty feet across with thickly woven rush mats, and the walls were lined with weapons and training dummies. Odin stormed to one in the far corner, slightly different than the others. This one had legs, and its maker had put in more effort at verisimilitude than the others. Across its back was a delicate design of runes and knotwork, out of place on something to be hacked to pieces. Odin traced them with a finger, muttering the charms to bring it to life. He was enraged, and strong: he made it as strong as a frost giant, as agile and quick as an elf. 

He needed to be certain it would defeat him. 

Odin turned away as the dummy came to life, eyes glowing gold, and selected a long, heavy spear from the racks, a small shield for his left arm and a one-handed axe for his belt. The dummy selected a broadbladed, two-handed sword which it wielded in its right hand, and a long bladed dagger was held with its left. 

Odin was barefoot, and in his sleeping clothes, but he did not pause to put on shoes or even a padded training vest. Instead he squared off against the dummy and commanded, "Begin!"

The first few rounds were easy wins for the Old Grimnir. The dummy was cut down, and rose at his command to begin again. The blood sang in his veins as he thrust his spear through the heart of the thing, or lopped of its head with his ax. 

But he was old, and tired, and even a berserker's rage cannot last forever. The bouts became harder to win, the dummy's blades leaving shallow cuts, then not so shallow gashes. Odin had removed all the safeguards he could. The dummy could wound him, but not mortally. Could not give him a blow to the head he could not sleep off. Could not leave him permanently maimed.

Finally, Odin missed a beat in the dance, and the dummy's long sword darted out and cut deep into Odin's left thigh, then retreated it is beginning position. It had won the round. 

Odin tore a wide strip off his shirt hem and bound it tightly around the wound, gritting his teeth as the knot bit into the split flesh. He tested the leg. It would hold. 

"Begin!"

The next round Odin won by virtue of throwing his axe square in the middle of the thing's head before it had moved a single pace. It was a cheap win, since he called the start of the round, but it took the sting off his pride. The next round was long, niether Odin nor the dummy being able to get in a blow significant enough to end the bout. Finally the dummy made a feint that threw Odin off balance, putting all his weight on the wounded leg, and it opened a long cut above Odin's good eye with its dirk. Blood streamed down his face, and blinded him. He yielded the round, and tore another strip from his shirt. _Why did head wounds have to bleed so bloody much._

"Again."

The next few rounds ended in a draw, the time for a bout running out. 

"Again."

Odin was getting tired. The bloodlust was saited, the rushes soaked. Dozens of small cuts oozed, the cut over his eye and his leg saturated their makeshift bandages and trickled and dripped as he moved. 

His punishment remained incomplete. 

This round he won with a lucky spear jab at the thing's neck. 

"Again."

They joined, their weapons clashing, an ugly mismatch of the smith's art. Now Odin 'wounded' its dagger hand. It dropped the blade, and retreated a pace. Odin grinned ferally, savoring the point before it swung around, the pommel of its sword foremost and crashed into Odins shield. The wood splintered, shattering into a thousand pieces and Odin swore loudly. His arm hung crookedly, clearly broken, and pieces of wood stuck out like a rumpled hedgehog's spines. The dummy retired while Odin pulled the biggest splinters out, tore another strip from his shirt and made a rough sling for his arm. He could set it later. 

Now he was truly hobbled. His wounded leg would hold his weight but no more; his left arm was useless for anything. He picked up his spear, and held it in a onehanded grip. 

"Again."

Now it was punishment. He held the dummy off well enough that the bouts ended in a draw, but he was picking up bruises and cuts with every exchange. The bouts timed out and he immediately shouted "Again!"

"Again!"

A blow to his knee had it swelling and stiff.

"Again!"

A blow across his back; blood soaked his shirt and dripped to the mats.

"Again!"

"Again!"

"Again!"

He could barely see now with his good eye, swollen and bloodcrusted and when the dummy swung the flat of it's blade at his blind side he missed it completely. It connected with a crack and it didn't take a healer to know the ribs were broken. Odin leaned over, using the spear as a crutch, trying to catch his breath. When it was as good as it was going to get, he forced himself upright, stood unsteadily and raised his spear. 

"Again!"

But the dummy did not move to engage. Instead it turned around and retreated to it's stand. 

"Again! I command you!"

The glowing runes faded.

"Again!" he was screaming, and it sounded near hysterical in his own ears. 

"Again." he said quietly and sank down to the mat. It wasn't enough. 

It would never be enough. 

But it would have to do for tonight. 

Odin braced the spear against the ground and used it to steady himself as he rose on his less damaged leg. Then, using it as an old man's stick, he limped heavily to a bench placed against the wall between two low cabinets. He sank down shakily, his bleeding leg able to bend but unable to bear shifts in weight, his swollen knee weight bearing but unable to bend. Once down, he placed the spear on the floor, wiped the blood out of his eye and took stock.

His shirt and pants, his favorite, most comfortable clothes, saved from Frigga and servants alike, were in tatters, little more than blood soaked rags hanging in strips. 

And he was little better. The shallow scrapes from the early rounds were already healed, but the deeper cuts still oozed, and the bad wounds were in need of care. He really ought to go to the healing rooms, but he would be damned if he went there for some training injuries. Besides, they would heal soon enough. And if he were honest with himself, which he couldn't be in this, he needed the pain. Needed it as a partial penance for his sins.

Old habits, born of thousands of years of battles and their aftermath, prompted Odin to conduct a rapid triage. His knee was a problem, but one that could wait. There was little to be done for his ribs other than perhaps binding them after cleaning up. The deep wound in his leg needed immediate attention, but it had waited this long. The broken arm was first priority. 

The makeshift sling was easily disposed of. A few sharp jerks rent the sleeve from the shirt and a few moments careful easing it off had it in a pile on the floor. 

There were still splinters from the shield stuck in his skin, and the muscle around the break was starting to swell. A twist of his fingers pulled the wood fragments out, and Odin wiped at the blood with his remaining shirt cuff. It was not good, but he had handled worse on the battlefield. He rummaged in the drawers until he found something rescued from his old field dressing kit. It looked like two leather bracers, with extra straps. It was fashioned from the hide and horn of a white hart from Alfheim, and enchanted with additional magics. It would do, but he needed to set the break, at least roughly, before it could be used. 

Odin studied the scrollwork on the cabinet, found a suitable spot, and wedged his left wrist into it. Then, relaxing his arm and bracing his mind, he yanked, falling backward so the limb was forced straight. Odin grit his teeth and waited for the stars to clear from his vision before strapping the tender arm into the splint. It hurt, but it had to be done. The magic set to work, forcing bone back into place little by little. It really needed to be soaked in water, allowing the leather to shrink around the limb and activating deeper magic within it, but that part could wait. He fixed the additional straps around his hand, and flexed his fingers. Painful, but serviceable. 

The time had come to face his leg. He pulled the tear in his trouser leg wider to get a better look. The cut was as wide as his hand, and deep as the first joint of his thumb. The bleeding had slowed, but not stopped. Odin considered his options. Cauterizing was the old standby, but he neither wanted to waste the magic to heat a blade hot enough, nor make his way to a fireplace. There was the barbaric method of stitching the wound closed, but considering how long it had been since he was last on campaign, he suspected the suture had long since turned to dust. A healing charm was out of the question, for several reasons. 

Odin searched through the drawers in search of other options, and came up empty. A wound this deep from training with a dummy was rare, and he was not at all good at keeping the first aid cabinet in this room well stocked. 

With a sigh, he ripped off another strip of shirt and bound the wound again. There would be something in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom that would do for tonight. Frigga was--had been--good at that sort of thing. 

With a deep groan, he used the spear to push himself to his feet. If only Frigga could see him now, he was certain he would get an earful. This was not fit for his age, his positon. 

He hobbled through his office, back into the main room, feeling wetness trickle down his back, his leg, his face, his fingers. He was sure he would have to figure out a way to get the blood out of the carpets before the servants saw it, but he would worry about that later. 

Perhaps. 

Because he could feel it, the glittering darkness of the Odinsleep hovering on the edge of his mind, flickering at the edge of his vision. Without the events of the night, he may have lasted weeks before needing to sleep. Without the events of the past few days he may have lasted years. Now? Now he would be exceedingly lucky to last the week. He would count himself fortunate to see the next day's sunset. 

And there was so much to do. 

The bathroom beckoned, with its huge, sunken tub and shelves of salts, salves, oils and unguents. Odin flicked his fingers and the tub began to fill with hot water. He forced his weary limbs to the shelves, finding every one he could that might heal his leg, his ribs, his arm enough for him to write down some official contingency plans. With another flick of his fingers he sent them flying into the tub. The broken bottles could be dealt with later.

His clothes, slashed to rags as they were, were easier to rend and remove in tatters than to take off properly. He would burn them later, or perhaps use them to bulk out Loki's pyre. The makeshift bandages he left on now, until the water could soak through them and get to work. 

Even without having to negotiate an edge, getting into the water was difficult with one leg that wouldn't bend, another that crumpled at a thought, a broken arm and a spear. But Odin was nothing if not stubbon, and managed it with only a handful of curses. The spells and salts stung as they got to work, and once seated on a ledge, Odin rested his head on the cold tile of the floor. It was too much effort to hold it up. 

Bone ground against bone as the magic in the splint on his arm awoke and set to work. His leg burned as veins were closed off and a rough seal in flesh made. Various cuts stung with greater or lesser severity. 

He should dunk his face under water, to let the magic work on the cut above his eye. But he was so tired, and it had stopped bleeding now. He dragged his right hand over his face a few times, wetting the bandage and getting most of the clotted blood off. 

There was much to do, and so little time. 

It would be so pleasant, he thought, to stop here a while. To sleep...

_No, Odin. Do not sleep here_

Odin jerked his head up and took a deep breath. No, it would not do to fall asleep in the bathtub. He was not sure if Aesir could drown in the bath, but the thought of waking up with lungs full of water was perhaps more unpleasant than being dead at this point in his life. He dunked his head underwater, removed the bandage from over his eye and roughly scrubbed at his hair. He came up spluttering, but more awake. The water of the bath was red now with blood, but from below came flashes and swirls of other colors as the potions did their work. It was like the auroras, if the sky were crimson. 

This kind of healing magic was effective, but slow. It would take well over an hour for it to complete its work. But Odin felt deep in his bones that he did not have that kind of time now. He flexed his knee--stiff, but it would bend and bear weight. His ribs were tender, but would hold. The wound on his leg would probably not bleed anymore, if he were careful.

He summoned the stairs out of the bath, and a plain robe materialized around him as climbed out. Not fit for a king, but fit for a penitent. 

The spear served again as an old man's walking stick as he made his way back to his office. He paused as he passed by to check that Loki was still sleeping quietly, and moved on before the call of the cushioned chairs could grow any louder. 

He sent piles of import document crashing to the floor to create space on his desk. He pulled out a pile of paper, and a copy of the law codes. Asgard placed great value in highly specific wording for their laws. This was not something to be haphazard with, not with the fate of the cosmos at risk. 

As he composed his thoughts, he felt Huginn and Muninn settle on the back of the chair, one on either side. With thought and memory over his shoulder, his mind cleared and he set to writing out his will, for whatever circumstances he could foresee. If Loki chose to take the throne as himself, as Odin, if he chose to reclaim his title "Prince of Asgard" and then make his own way, if he chose to stay 'dead' and Odin needed to reinstate him posthumously. If Thor accepted the throne, if Thor rejected the throne. Now and then he checked a word, a phrase, to make sure it would hold up under any scrutiny. When he was done, folded them carefully, labeling each with the contingency under which it should be opened, and sealed them with his signet ring. Asgard was a place with no few people skilled in illusions. The signet ring guaranteed that a written order had been the King's order. 

That done, Odin folded his arms on the desk top, lay his head down, and slept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has been sitting done for months. Its the companion chapter that gave me hell.
> 
> This seriously annoyed me about the way they did Loki-as-Odin in the movies. You have a society where more than a few people are skilled sorcerers, capable of making themselves or anyone else look like anyone else. And you don't have a way of making sure that the person telling you to do things is actually that person? Not one magic object, one password protected cabinet, or something? My knitting patterns apparently have more security on them than the throne of Asgard.


	14. Chapter 7b:The love of the Mother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Loki and Frigga have a chat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previous chapter summary: Loki dreams he is back on the asteroid in the void, being tortured by the Other. Odin shows up, and Loki believes that it is to drag him back to Asgard for punishment. He is seriously confused when Odin leaves him in the Queen's garden, and Frigga comes out to him.

Loki opened his eyes, and was nearly blinded by the soft, late afternoon sunlight. He blinked, and slowly Frigga, _Mother_ , came into focus, blocking the light and giving her a glowing nimbus around her head. 

"Oh my son, what have they done to you? No wonder your father was so angry."

_No, Father is furious with me. The jotun outcast. The usurper. The murderer_ Loki wanted to protest, but before the words could form on his lips, Frigga was in the pool with him, her skirts billowing around him, her arms cradling him so as to somehow avoid the worst of his injuries while simulutaneously holding him tightly to her, his head in the crook of her neck and her cheek pressing into his awful, bloody hair. It hurt to be held, but he didn't care. It reassured him that this was real, not a mindtrick of the Other or Odin or anyone else. At the very least, if it was a dream, it was _his_ dream and no one else's. 

"Mother," he whispered in a cracked, broken voice, and pressed his eyes together as tears prickled, and sank into the feeling of being _held_. Not bound, or restrained, or shackled, but held. It was too much. Frigga radiatated safety and love like a star radiates light. It poured off her, and into him, and he felt as though he were drowning, swept away in a torrent of unaccustomed peace. Strangled sobs caught in his throat; he shuddered in pain, relief, fear and exhaustion. 

"Loki, Loki, shh, I'm here. It will be alright. Shh." The words were so familiar, and Frigga whispered them over and over, an incantation, a prayer. A litany heard a thousand thousand times over the years. In the gardens, in the practice rooms, in the healing rooms, on the Bifrost. For scraped knees and spells gone awry and spears through the shoulder. It was impossible to hear them and not reflexively _trust_ them. They offered a solidity and surety that outweighed Asgard, and Loki clung to them as he clung to his mother, the only one he had ever known. His hands tangled in her gown, fingers aching with the fierce desperation of his grasp. Tears soaked his face, her shoulder, as sobs broke free and wracked his body. Ugly, heartbreaking, gutwrenching.

And Frigga stayed. Somehow she shifted so she still held him, but had one hand free at a time, stroking his hair, holding his neck, clutching his hand in hers, repeating over and over his name and her assurances. For the first time in a long, long time, Loki let himself go. After everything, every effort to be manly, to be honorable, to do Asgard proud, to survive, to die, to be cold and calculating, he stopped trying. The terror and pain and sorrow of the past age flowed out his eyes. Babbling as words tumbled out faster than his tongue could form them, he held on for dear life. And Frigga, _Mother_ , held him close, kissed his hair, said his name, repeated that he was safe, he was home, he was loved, she would not lose him again, all would be well. Until at last the storm seemed to end, and he was utterly spent. Empty. Ready to begin the hard work of putting himself back together. Of being put back together. When his grip relaxed, Frigga lifted her head from where it had come to rest on his. Gently, she moved so she could kiss his filthy, bloody forehead, and then began wiping his face with the hem of her sodden dress. The fabric turned black and red between being rinsed in the pool, until it didn't and Loki felt like a mask had been removed.

"There," she said with a sad smile. "That's better. Perhaps I could take a look at your wounds now, see what I can do."

"No, please," the words were out of his mouth before he realized the futility of them, his hands grasping feebly at hers, but he desperately did not want Frigga to see his ignominy, the blood eagles carved into his flesh. They were too shameful to bear, and he could not lose his mother's love. Not after everything else. 

Frigga openned her mouth to speak, then seemed to recognize the fear in his eyes and instead moved her hands to gentle cradle his face, her thumbs stroking reassuringly across his cheekbones, fingers tucking stiff, gory locks behind his ears. "Loki," she said softly after a moment, "It is more difficult to heal wounds I cannot see. It would be more painful, and less effective a charm. Please, dearheart." She did not move, except to keep her thumbs moving across his face. Loki swallowed thickly.

He could not. 

"Loki, whatever it is you fear I will see--it will not change my love for you. _Nothing that anyone could have done to you would change that_. You are my son, and I love you, even to the ending of the worlds." Loki met her gaze for a long moment, before the sincerity it held became too much. He looked away and gave a terse nod. He tensed for the pain of moving, but all that happened was Frigga moving a single hand from his face to cast a half-height illusion of him on the grass. He caught a glimpse of his ruined back out of the corner of his eye, and was nearly sick at the sight. Only the fact that he hadn't eaten in weeks, months, years, only the Norns knew, prevented it. 

"Hmph. There will be a reckoning for this." Loki shivered at her words. It was too easy to remember that the All-mother could be as terrifying as the All-father. Frigga gave a heavy sigh, and muttered to herself, "No wonder Odin could not control his temper." She shifted slowly until Loki was again floating in the pool, kissed his forehead and smoothed back his hair.

Loki watched as Frigga drew herself up out of the water, missing immediately the comfort her touch. She stepped up onto the grass, her skirts sodden and dragging until a flick of her fingers sent the water pouring back into the pond, leaving her skirts once again flowing and voluminous. Then she set to work and Loki lost himself in watching her weave her charm. The golden threads hung in the air, her motions delicate here, bold there. It was a masterful working, a thing of beauty hovering on the edge of sight like a spiderweb at dawn. It was mesmerizing, and Loki found himself following a single thread until it got lost in a complicated knotting, then following another. At last Frigga stood back, studied it for a moment, then with a satisfied nod pushed it into the water. 

The magic exploded into light, and unspooled around him. Loki gasped as the tendrils of light sought the worst of his wounds, sparking pain then soothing it away with a sensation of being simultaneously too warm and too cold. It found its way into his wounds, then deep inside, at once sickening and sweet relief. 

Then the pain receeded. It was there, somewhere just out of reach, but it didn't matter. Or it was just a memory of pain, a dream that would fade as the sun rose. 

Then Frigga was kneeling behind his head. "Let's see what may be done about this." 

The charm worked on his hurts, and the All-mother worked on his hair, knotted and matted, clotted with blood and caked with mud. She worked slowly, deft fingers working one lock at a time. When it was freed of dirt and gore, she produced a comb, first showing it to Loki, and only then working on the knots, gently and with infinite patience. Loki relaxed into her touch, and it seemed to him that he was drifting, somewhere between waking and sleep, but not in the tortured way he had been. This was the drowsing of a summer afternoon in a hammock, or rocking in a skiff on a calm sea. The horrors of his imprisionment, the terror of his rescue receeded and a peace replaced them.

He closed his eyes, focused on his mother's touch, the dance of water and magic on his skin. 

The nightmare faded. But slowly, it seemed to him that he remembered a different nightmare. As awful and terrifying as Odin's rescue had been, he could remember worse. He had never been rescued. Odin had never come. He had languished, not alive, not dead, suffocating, bleeding, starving for eons. Someone had kept him there, had let his mouth fill with the taste of his own rotting flesh until he could not taste truth from falsehood. Until he had willingly swallowed the lies if it meant swallowing water. Had whispered betrayal if it meant drawing another breath, or the promise of an end. Both these memories, the rescue and the not-rescue, seemed utterly real. Neither tasted _false_. But the memories of not-rescue continued, with hopeless, terrible plans for Midgard, and death. Death for humans at his command, and then death

for Mother. 

Loki did not _want_ these memories to be true. But no dream, not even the worst nightmare, lasts for years. Why else would he have all these images in his head? 

Unless he had gone completely mad.

Loki opened his eyes, and saw Frigga sitting next to him on grassy edge of the pond. The words when he said them were quiet. Not hesitant, not accusatory. Just slightly sad. "This isn't Asgard, is it?"

"No."

"Odin never came, did he?" In another time, another place it would have been biting. Angry. Now it was just wishful.

"No."

"I betrayed everyone. Asgard, Midgard, Thor, you. All to save myself. Didn't I?"

"Yes." The words were said without inflection, simply facts. 

Loki placed his hands on the rock beneath him, and pushed until he was sitting in the water. He stretched his neck until it gave a series of small pops, then rolled his shoulders until he felt the painful tingle of scar tissue tug back. He ran his hands over his face, pushing his wet hair out of the way, and then hid his face in his hands. 

"You chose to survive. You paid for your life with the lives of others, which you will have to live with. Perhaps you should ensure it was worth the price," Frigga was not unkind, but neither was she soft. She pulled his hands away from his face. "As to your father: no, he never came for you. We did not know there was a place to go. You are the first person in ten thousand cycles of Ragnarok to survive the Void. I made sure to write it in the Chroncile," she added. "If he had known, nothing would have stood in his way."

Odin was too big a conundrum to address at the moment. And not nearly pressing as the one Frigga presented. Loki looked at his mother, not wanting to ask, but needing to know. "And you, you are..." he swallowed, having found he could not say the word.

"Dead, Loki. Yes. But not gone," she smiled and cupped his face in her hand. "Just a little harder to reach." Loki grasped her hand, and closed his eyes. It may be a dream, but she was more real, more solid than she had been as illusions cast into his cell. The last time he had been able to feel her touch, he had thwarted an assasination attempt he had arranged. It felt like a lifetime ago. And maybe it was.

The last time he spoke to her...

_Am I not your mother then?_

_You are not._

"I'm so sorry, Mother." he whispered. "You _are_ my mother. I am your son. I'm so, so sorry."

"Shhh, Loki. Shush. I know it." Frigga kissed the top of his head firmly. "It something every mother hears at some point. It doesn't make it true."

" _Why_?" That was the question at the heart of all the questions. The one that he could not voice to Odin, could not even form coherently.

"Why what, darling?" Frigga grasped his hands and guided him gently to sit next to her on the bank. Water dripped from his hair, ran down his mangled back in rivulets. Pond weeds tickled his feet still in the water. He stared at his hands and the water collecting in them as he dripped. He tried to form the question more clearly, more cogently. _Why am I your son? Why wont you disown me? Why do you love me?_ These questions were part of it, but only part. It was too great, a yawning, consuming question to put into words. 

Loki felt something drape over his shoulders, and raised his hands reflexively to keep it on. His fingers felt soft velvet, and the rough threads of gold embroidery. Startled, he looked at it closely and found it to be a richly decorated robe, in his colors. He glanced at Frigga, who simply smiled and helped him to get his arms, still stiff despite _knowing_ they were only imagined, into the sleeves. 

"This has its counterpart in the waking world," she told him, picking imaginary dust from his shoulder. "Its hanging in your closet."

"Why? Why didn't you burn everything? Scratch my name out of the records? _Why do you still care?!_ " The words flooded out of his mouth before he could stop himself. It wasn't the right way to ask. It wasn't the right person to ask. It wasn't the right time. It wasn't even the whole question. 

"Because you are my son, and I love you." Infuriatingly calm and steady. As though it were as basic as simple sums.

"But _why_?" Loki felt something cracking deep in his soul. A wound that had scabbed over was breaking open. "Why do you love me? I'm not--"

"Careful, Loki."

He swallowed. Collected himself. He didn't want this to end as it had before. He did up the fastenings on the front of the robe, his fingers feeling stiff,and thought how ridiculous he looked. Sopping wet, wearing a royal robe and leggings so tattered they were two seams away from a loincloth. He was usually more composed than this, always put together. Or at least putting up the illusion of it. He straightened the cuffs, and found words. "I'm not your flesh and blood."

"So? What matter is that? What have flesh and blood to do with love, or family?"

Loki was stymied. It seemed obvious. "Everyone knows you love the children of your body best. Easiest. Most readily," he hazarded. 

Frigga snorted. "Have you ever considered how strange it is that a mother could love her child the moment its born? Putting aside biological imperitives. I know you haven't tried to be a mother in several lifetimes, but you have a good imagination, I know. Here is a thing that has stolen your food, your sleep, your body. It has torn itself out of you with great tribulation, and then demands to be further fed from your body. The greater wonder, were it not for horomones and the like, would be that I could love Thor, who broke several of my ribs kicking one night before he was born. You? You came to me, and we needed one another. Why should I not love you?"

Frigga reached out and began a tiny plait above Loki's left ear. Loki remembered how in life, she had always needed something to do with her hands. If it was inappropriate to have needlework, she twisted her fingers, fiddled with decoration on a sleeve, traced the carvings on a chair arm. If her hands were still, it was because she was restraining one with the other. She seemed not to have lost that habit in death.

"Kinship may largely be blood, but it is not _solely_ blood," she continued. "Kith may become kin. Thor was ours by blood, but you are ours by choice." 

Loki sat in silence. It seemed so simple to Frigga. But it wasn't, it _couldn't_ be that simple. The words spun through his mind, and he turned them over and over, trying to make sense of them. 

After some time, Frigga finished her braiding. She sat back and aranged her skirts, before staring with Loki at the slowly setting sun. "In any event, even if you did not begin as blood, you certainly were by the time you were weaned. You had the sharpest gums of any baby I've ever known. And the hungriest. Satisfaction was never in your nature, I suppose."

The phrase rang a bell in a corner of Loki's mind, and his head snapped around. "You were watching us."

"Of course I was. It is possibly the only advantage to being dead. I can finally keep a proper eye on you two." From some personal pocket dimension she produced a tray loaded with what looked like tea and cakes. "I can't say I was surprised, but I was somewhat...," she seemed to be choosing her words carefully as she set the tray down between and slightly behind them. "saddened to find you fighting." She poured out and offered Loki a cup of tea with a small cake balanced on the saucer rim. "Its not particularly Asgardian, I admit, but it is rather pleasant."

Loki took it in some bemusement. Delicate was not a word that could be associated with any Asgardian food tradition. The drink was hot, and strongly flavored, and slightly bitter. The miniscule cake melted on the tongue and tasted of almonds. 

The sun was hovering just over the horizon now, and the sky was awash with glowing pinks and deep purples. Loki wondered if there was significance to the fact that the sun was setting. This was a dream after all. One constructed by, by whom? Odin? Himself? Frigga? 

Frigga set down her cup with a loud _clink_ "What do you intend to do?"

"Pardon?"

"I believe your father offered you the throne while he slept. And several other paths. Have you considered which one you will choose?"

Loki took another cake from the tray. It may be all in his head, but he was hungry. "I have not really had much leisure to weigh my choices, Mother."

"Do not try that silvertongue on me, Loki. I am not some ambassador from Alfheimr."

"My apologies." Loki set down his empty cup as well. "I only meant I was rather, hmm, preoccupied while I was awake and have not had much of a chance to sleep on it." He looked at Frigga. "What would you have me do?"

But she shook her head. "No, Loki. This choice is, must be, yours."

Too much choice. Too much freedom. He could choose anything, to be anyone and anything. From a tramp wandering the galaxy up to and including the kind of Asgard, acting All-father of the Nine.

It was paralyzing. 

Loki felt Frigga take his hand again, and squeeze it reassuringly. "Loki, there is no _wrong_ choice. It is not a trial of your character."

"Everything is a trial of character," Loki countered, remembering a lesson learned long ago.

"In the grand scheme of things, perhaps. But Father did not offer it as a trial. If it is trial, we are not the judges."

The surge of anger that Loki was accustomed to feeling at the word _father_ failed to appear. But the dread uncertainty of being able to chose without constraint remained. 

"What would you do, Loki, if you did not take the throne?"

"Run." There was no hesitation. Instinct for self-preservation overruled vaguer concepts of unlimited freedom. "Run as far and as fast as I could."

"Would you run forever?"

There was the rub. Was anywhere in the galaxy, the cosmos safe? Probably not. He could run, but he would never be able to stop running. Not unless He was defeated. 

"And what if I did as Odin wanted? What's to stop me burning the Nine to the ground?" 

"Nothing." Frigga poured herself another cup of tea. "Just as there's nothing to stop you from causing them to flourish, or fall into chaos. Or provoking chaos. That is the chance Father is willing to take."

"What if I slit my throat first thing in the morning?" Loki hadn't meant to say it, only think it. 

"I think you will find it does not work as well as you might hope." The words had a warning edge, and Loki raised his hands in surrender. 

"I don't know, Mother," he said with a sigh, looking at the sun now sinking below the horizon. "It's been rather a lot, the past few day. I need time to think, but I doubt I will have it."

"Perhaps not." Frigga disappeared the tray and rose to her feet. She offered Loki a hand, and together they began slowly walking toward the palace. "There never is enough time to think. Or else there is far too much."

"Where are we going?" 

"Time is not mine to give you. Even in dreams, I cannot stop its passage. And I must have words with your father before the night is out. But I can give you sleep without dreams, good or ill, until you wake."

Loki trembled at the thought. Sleep. Real, restful sleep. 

"I would be very grateful," he said, unable to stop his voice from shaking. 

Frigga guided him her huge bed, and Loki vaguely remembered Odin doing something similar earlier in the night. She snapped her fingers and Loki found himself in pyjamas. 

"Tell me one thing," she said as he lay back and she pulled the blankets up, as though he were a small child again. "Did you father find the large bottle of healing potion? I did try to leave it in an obvious spot."

A smile cracked Loki's lips. "Yes, I think he did."

"Good." She placed a hand over Loki's eyes. "Sleep now, Loki."

And darkness enveloped him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This, this chapter is why this is so late. I *hate* writing Frigga. The more I thought about her choices, the more I wanted to smack her. Also this wanted to veer into maudlin really, really fast. I'm still not 100% happy with it, but since I don't like writing Frigga, I don't think I'll ever be and I want to get back to Loki and Odin.


End file.
